scholarly journals Association between recognition and help-seeking preferences and stigma towards people with mental illness

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Picco ◽  
E. Abdin ◽  
S. Pang ◽  
J. A. Vaingankar ◽  
A. Jeyagurunathan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Confidence Intervals ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Categorical Variables ◽  
Perceived Stigma ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
The Relationship

Aims.The ability to recognise a mental illness has important implications as it can aid in timely and appropriate help-seeking, and ultimately improve outcomes for people with mental illness. This study aims to explore the association between recognition and help-seeking preferences and stigmatising attitudes, for alcohol abuse, dementia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia, using a vignette-based approach.Methods.This was a population-based, cross-sectional survey conducted among Singapore Residents (n = 3006) aged 18–65 years. All respondents were asked what they think is wrong with the person in the vignette and who they should seek help from. Respondents were also administered the Personal and Perceived sub scales of the Depression Stigma Scale and the Social Distance Scale. Weighted frequencies and percentages were calculated for categorical variables. A series of multiple logistic and linear regression models were performed separately by vignette to generate odd ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the relationship between help-seeking preference, and recognition and beta coefficients and 95% confidence intervals for the relationship between stigma and recognition.Results.Correct recognition was associated with less preference to seek help from family and friends for depression and schizophrenia. Recognition was also associated with increased odds of endorsing seeking help from a psychiatric hospital for dementia, depression and schizophrenia, while there was also an increased preference to seek help from a psychologist and psychiatrist for depression. Recognition was associated with less personal and perceived stigma for OCD and less personal stigma for schizophrenia, however, increased odds of social distancing for dementia.Conclusion.The ability to correctly recognise a mental illness was associated with less preference to seek help from informal sources, whilst increased preference to seek help from mental health professionals and services and less personal and perceived stigma. These findings re-emphasise the need to improve mental health literacy and reinforce the potential benefits recognition can have to individuals and the wider community in Singapore.

scholarly journals Attitudes of people working in mental health non-governmental organisations in Australia: A comparison with other mental health professionals

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205510291876541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grenville Rose ◽  
Courtney von Hippel ◽  
Loren Brener ◽  
Bill von Hippel
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Help Seeking Behaviour ◽  
Mental Health Clients

Research suggests that stigma impacts help-seeking behaviour and health outcomes for people affected by mental illness. This study compared the attitudes of Australian non-governmental organisation support workers towards people with mental illness with those of other health professionals. Three hundred and seventy four support workers were randomly allocated to answer questions about one of the six vignettes. Results indicated that non-governmental organisation support workers held more positive attitudes towards people with mental illness than those of general practitioners, psychiatrists and psychologists measured in prior research. These results suggest that non-governmental organisations may be a more positive and comfortable entry and referral point for mental health clients.

scholarly journals Attitudes towards psychiatric treatment and people with mental illness: changes over two decades

2013 ◽  
Vol 203 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias C. Angermeyer ◽  
Herbert Matschinger ◽  
Georg Schomerus
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Alcohol Dependence ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Treatment ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Psychiatric Treatment ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
People With Mental Illness

BackgroundOver the past decades, psychiatry, as a science and a clinical discipline, has witnessed profound changes.AimsTo examine whether these changes are reflected in changes in the public's conceptualisation of mental disorders, the acceptance of mental health treatment and attitudes towards people with mental illness.MethodIn 1990 and 2011, population surveys were conducted in Germany on public attitudes about schizophrenia, depression and alcohol dependence.ResultsAlthough the public has become more inclined to endorse a biological causation of schizophrenia, the opposite trend was observed with the other two disorders. The public's readiness to recommend help-seeking from mental health professionals and using psychotherapy and psychotropic medication has increased considerably. Attitudes towards people with schizophrenia worsened, whereas for depression and alcohol dependence no or inconsistent changes were found.ConclusionsThe growing divide between attitudes towards schizophrenia and other mental disorders should be of particular concern to future anti-stigma campaigns.

Attitude of person living with psychosis towards MH professionals: A qualitative study

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. s843-s843
Author(s):  
K. Vaiphei ◽  
P. Sreedaran ◽  
V. Sathyanarayanan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
The Relationship

AimsStudies investigating attitudes of people with mental illness are scarce. The aim of the present study was to investigate person living with psychosis on their attitudes and perception towards the mental health professionals in contact with mental health services.MethodsAn in-depth interview was used to explore their lived experiences and attitude towards mental health professionals.ResultsBoth negative and positive attitudes were prevalent among the patients. Most negative attitudes concerned on not giving time, the MHPs are most interested in financial gains. They felt attitude changes according to diagnosis, psychosis perceived as diagnosis with violence; they are more interested in protecting themselves, perception that treating symptoms and not cause of illness. On the contrary, they felt positive on the relationship and time given to them.Discussion and conclusions The PLWI's attitude to MHPs could be a product of the type of admission (forced upon), symptoms related or on the type of service settings. The present study is purely qualitative, single settings, could not be generalised. However it points on the need for sensitization of MHPs and relationship building oriented intervention.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Mental health courts: Providing access to justice for people with mental illness and cognitive impairments

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-107
Author(s):  
Liz Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Peer Support ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Mental Health Courts ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Trauma Informed ◽  
The Relationship

Mental health courts have been established in four Australian jurisdictions to provide a targeted response to people with mental illness and cognitive impairments coming through the courts. This article provides an up-to-date overview of Australian mental health courts, discusses the evidence base underpinning them and identifies three important emerging directions for their future operation. These are the need for a contextualised understanding of the relationship between mental illness and offending, the importance of trauma-informed approaches and the role that peer support workers can play in mental health courts.

Dentistry students’ views about mental illness and impact of a targeted seminar on knowledge and attitudes: a mixed-method study

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Patterson ◽  
Pauline Ford
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Dental Students ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Knowledge And Attitudes ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to inform education of non-mental health professionals who provide care to people with severe mental illness; to describe dentistry students’ knowledge and views about mental illness, including willingness to engage in various social situations with a person hospitalised for mental illness; and to assess and understand the impact of a targeted lecture on views and attitudes. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employed mixed methods to examine dental students’ knowledge and views about mental disorder before and after a seminar covering mental disorder, disadvantage and oral health. Findings from a bespoke questionnaire administered to third-year dental students were triangulated with qualitative data gathered in interviews with a subsample. Findings – Students understood mental disorder broadly, employing diverse causal models. Although knowledge was typically grounded in media stereotypes, attitudes were benevolent and most students reported willingness to provide dental care to affected individuals. The seminar, especially the consumer delivered section, was valued and associated with increased appreciation of the impact of mental disorder on oral health and need for assertive action to promote access to care. However, students reported being reluctant to disclose their own mental health problems for fear of being considered a professional or personal failure. A minority knew how to seek support if a friend talked of suicide. Research limitations/implications – This study highlights the need for further investigation of the knowledge and attitudes of dentistry students pertinent to provision of care to people with mental illness and to examine the links between attitudes and practice. The paper also provides a useful foundation for development of brief educational interventions, particularly the value in integrating the service user perspective, and their evaluation. Research should also examine the impact of mental health education on practice. Practical implications – A single inexpensive educational session, such as the one the paper developed may support reconsideration of often unconscious views of mental illness which might affect practice. Social implications – If people with mental illness are to receive equitable access to health care, non-mental health professionals should be supported to develop knowledge and attitudes which are conducive to inclusive treatment. An education session such as this could be helpful. Originality/value – There is scant literature examining attitudes of dentistry students and no reports of mental health-specific education with this population.

scholarly journals Metaphors of mental illness: a corpus-based approach analysing first-person accounts of patients and mental health professionals

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 85-104
Author(s):  
Marta Coll-Florit ◽  
Antoni Oliver ◽  
Salvador Climent
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Manual Annotation ◽  
Severe Mental Disorders ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Patient Subgroups

In this paper we describe the building, manual annotation and analysis of a balanced corpus to assess conceptual metaphors on mental illness as used in Spanish blogger writing by patients and mental health professionals. The corpus was structured as eight subgroups: four patient subgroups (composed of persons who declared having been diagnosed with major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder) and four mental health professional subgroups (psychiatrists, psychologists, social educators, nurses). The quantitative analysis identified similarities and differences between groups regarding the volume of metaphors produced and the topics linguistically expressed through metaphors. The most frequent metaphors used by each major group, patients and professionals, were qualitatively analysed, with the principal findings showing a set of source domains used to conceptualize all four severe mental disorders, thus pointing to a common conceptualization of mental suffering irrespective of the specific diagnosis, and two major types of metaphors, WAR and JOURNEY, used by all subgroups of patients and professionals to talk about their first-hand experiences.

scholarly journals Mental illness stigma research in Argentina

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 86-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Agrest ◽  
Franco Mascayano ◽  
Sara Elena Ardila-Gómez ◽  
Ariel Abeldaño ◽  
Ruth Fernandez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Illness Stigma ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Community Perceptions ◽  
Community Based ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
National Mental Health ◽  
Community Based Services

Studies regarding stigma towards mental illness in Argentina blossomed after the first National Mental Health Law was passed in 2010. Methodological limitations and contradictory results regarding community perceptions of stigma hinder comparisons across domestic and international contexts but some lessons may still be gleaned. We examine this research and derive recommendations for future research and actions to reduce stigma. These include tackling culture-specific aspects of stigma, increasing education of the general population, making more community-based services available and exposing mental health professionals to people with mental illness who are on community paths to recovery.

Role of Stigma and Attitudes Toward Help-Seeking from a General Practitioner for Mental Health Problems in a Rural Town

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 514-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Wrigley ◽  
Henry Jackson ◽  
Fiona Judd ◽  
Angela Komiti
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Psychological Help ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Perceived Stigma ◽  
Professional Psychological Help ◽  
Mental Health Issues

Objective: To examine the role of perceived stigma and attitudes to seeking care in predicting help-seeking from a general practitioner (GP) for mental health problems. Method: Across-sectional surveyin 2002 with self-repor t questionnaires assessing current levels of symptomatology, disability, attitudes towards mental illness, knowledge of prevalence and causes of mental illness, contact with mental illness and help-seeking behaviour and preferences and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Results: No significant relationship was found between symptom measures and measures of disability and help-seeking. Variables positively associated with general attitudes to seeking professional psychological help were: lower perceived stigma, and biological rather than person-based causal attributions for schizophrenia. Willingness to discuss mental health issues with a GP was predicted by the perceived helpfulness of the GP and by no other variable. Conclusions: Causal attributions and perceivedstigma rather than participants' levels of symptomatology and disability influence attitudes to help-seeking for mental health issues. Efforts to improve attitudes to help-seeking should focus on reducing stigma and improving mental health literacy regarding the causes of disorders.

Recall of News Stories About Mental Illness by Australian Youth: Associations with Help-Seeking Attitudes and Stigma

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (9) ◽  
pp. 866-872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Morgan ◽  
Anthony F. Jorm
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
News Story ◽  
Help Seeking Attitudes ◽  
News Stories ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Willingness To Seek Help

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate what news stories about mental illness are recalled by Australian youth and whether these are associated with stigma and help-seeking beliefs. Method: A random sample of 3746 Australian youth aged 12–25 years were interviewed about mental health literacy in 2006. As part of the interview, they were asked whether they could recall any news stories about mental health problems during the past 12 months. Stigma was assessed, as well as willingness to seek help for a mental illness described in a vignette. Common news story themes were entered as predictors of stigma components and willingness to seek help in a series of logistic regressions. Results: Only a minority of youth could recall a news story about mental illness. The most common stories recalled were those involving crime or violence; mental health system failures; or disclosures of mental illness by prominent individuals. Recall of a disclosure by a prominent individual was associated with beliefs that people with mental illness are sick rather than weak, while recall of a story involving crime or violence was associated with greater reluctance to tell anyone about a mental health problem. There were no types of stories that predicted willingness to seek help. Conclusions: There is some evidence that recall of positive or negative news stories is associated with specific components of stigma. Overall, however, recall of news stories about mental illness added little explanatory power to differences in stigma or help-seeking intentions.

Mentally Abnormal Homicide in New Zealand as Defined by Legal and Clinical Criteria: A National Study

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 804-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander I.F. Simpson ◽  
Jeremy Skipworth ◽  
Brian McKenna ◽  
Andrew Moskowitz ◽  
Justin Barry-Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Mental Health Treatment ◽  
National Study ◽  
Psychotic Illness ◽  
Clinical Criteria ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Relationship

Background: Homicides by people with mental illness have been studied using either clinical or legal categorization of the homicide as abnormal. No previous study has employed both definitions in the same population. Method: A retrospective study of all homicides in New Zealand between 1988 and 2000 considered mentally abnormal homicide using a legal definition (when the courts deemed a contribution of mental illness was present) and a clinical definition (defined as the presence of a discharge diagnosis from inpatient mental health treatment) of ‘mentally abnormal’. Rates, characteristics and time trends were investigated. Results: Of the 844 cases, 7.1% met legal criteria for being mentally abnormal, while 7.7% had ever received a diagnosis for a psychotic illness, and a further 14.5% had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for any other reason. The majority (60%) of perpetrators with a psychotic diagnosis received a mental health disposition from the court. Of these, 60% were first diagnosed with their psychotic illness prior to the homicide, while 28% were first diagnosed at the time of the offence and a further 12% after imprisonment. Of all those who received a psychotic diagnosis, 89% had post-conviction admissions or a mental health disposition. Conclusion: Legal and clinical definitions of mentally abnormal homicide detect similar rates of mentally abnormal homicide, but illustrate somewhat different dimensions of the relationship between mental illness and homicide.

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