Assessing Mental Illness Stigma: A Complex Issue

Mental Health Through the COVID-19 Quarantine: A Growth Curve Analysis on Italian Young Adults

“…This is even more urgent considering that despite the distressing and prolonged situation, a significant number of people avoid seeking psychological help ( Rossi and Mannarini, 2019 ). On the one hand, some of these people may be reluctant to seek professional help due to the associated stigma ( Mannarini et al, 2017b , 2018 , 2020 ; Faccio et al, 2019 ; Mannarini and Rossi, 2019 ). On the other hand, some individuals may deny the problem, leading them to think that it will probably resolve itself naturally ( Sareen et al, 2007 ; Rossi Ferrario et al, 2019 ; Rossi Ferrario and Panzeri, 2020 ), thus choosing to manage the psychological issue on their own ( Wilson and Deane, 2012 ).…”

The Effectiveness of a Depression Literacy Program on Stigma and Mental Help-Seeking Among Adolescents in Malaysia: A Control Group Study With 3-Month Follow-Up

“…The tasks were intended to elicit their current knowledge and understanding in identifying symptoms of depression, the stigma they have on depression and their initiatives in helping friends who are seen to be mentally disturbed and troubled. Facilitators evaluated if the participants expressed wrongful knowledge or stigmatizing attitudes on depression based partially on the vignette procedure by Mannarini and Boffo 49,50 : (1) etiological beliefs (eg, failure to adopt a biopsychosocial perspective or attributing moral weakness as the reason for developing depression); (2) stereotypes (eg, always dressed sloppily or smelled bad); (3) the degree of dangerousness; and (4) the desire for social distance. Facilitators then discussed the correct facts on depression, what consists of a stigmatizing attitude, and the impact of stigma on persons with depression.…”

How do education and experience with mental illness interact with causal beliefs, eligible treatments and stigmatising attitudes towards schizophrenia? A comparison between mental health professionals, psychology students, relatives and patients

“…A number of instruments for measuring attitudes towards mental illness and causal beliefs and treatments exist in the Italian language, such as Community Attitudes to the Mentally Ill (CAMI) [41], the Questionnaire on the Opinions about Mental Illness [42], the Attribution Questionnaire (AQ-27) [43,44], the Mental Disorders Causal Beliefs (MDCB) scale [36], and the Mental Disorder Therapy Relationship scale [45]. Such instruments are self-report questionnaires that consider one or several aspects characterising the multi-factor structure of mental illness, and they mostly refer to mental illness, in general ignoring the particularity of the different mental disorders [46]. In order to overcome such a limitation, in this study, a vignette approach was used to examine the validity of the expected latent structure characterised by schizophrenia indicators, namely, social distance, dangerousness and avoidance as perceived by four different groups of people, together with causal beliefs and recommended treatments [46].…”

“…Such instruments are self-report questionnaires that consider one or several aspects characterising the multi-factor structure of mental illness, and they mostly refer to mental illness, in general ignoring the particularity of the different mental disorders [46]. In order to overcome such a limitation, in this study, a vignette approach was used to examine the validity of the expected latent structure characterised by schizophrenia indicators, namely, social distance, dangerousness and avoidance as perceived by four different groups of people, together with causal beliefs and recommended treatments [46]. In line with the large amount of previous scientific literature using the vignette approach [4,11,20,47,48] in this research, vignettes cognitively tested in the Italian environment in the studies by Mannarini, Boffo, Rossi and Balottin (2018) and Mannarini and Boffo (2015) were applied.…”

“…Moreover, the gender of the vignette protagonist was counterbalanced across participants. Participants were requested to evaluate the possible origin of the problems of the protagonist, the possible treatments to cure his/her problems, the desire for social distance from that person, the degree of social dangerousness of the described person and the desire of people in general to avoid that person [46].…”