Effect of Name Change of Schizophrenia on Mass Media Between 1985 and 2013 in Japan: A Text Data Mining Analysis

Mental‐health‐related stigma among Japanese children and their parents and impact of renaming of schizophrenia

“…The Japanese version of the OS has been validated and consists of seven items rated on a 5‐point Likert scale covering negative and stereotypical knowledge about schizophrenia and depressive disorder (range 7–35; higher scores represent fewer negative stereotypes, such as ‘Patients with schizophrenia are a danger to others’) . We conducted the OS for both the old and new names of schizophrenia and depressive disorder, as well as for diabetes mellitus as a physical illness comparison …”

“…However, health education received in schools and the community was substantially different between parents and their children . The quality and quantity of information about mental health available in the mass media, and the existence of the Internet have also created differences in mental‐health‐related stigma between parents and their children . An appropriate educational curriculum and information for young people and their parents could decrease stereotypes and prejudices toward mental illness, promote disclosure of psychological conditions, and encourage people to seek help for their mental health problems from their family members.…”

Renaming schizophrenia alone has not altered negative wording in newspaper articles: A text‐mining finding in Taiwan

“…Aimed at reducing stigmatization and increasing public acceptance, a boom of renaming schizophrenia and dementia in local languages has occurred in East Asian countries in the past decade . Japan was the first country to change the translation for schizophrenia and studies show that this change has reduced the stigma for informed patients and students in Japan, but has had limited effects on the content of published mass media articles . As a major power shaping public attitudes, the mass media often stigmatize schizophrenia with a high proportion of negative contexts …”

“…Conjunctions, proper nouns, units, and numerals were excluded. We modified the methodology by Koike et al . and classified words into five categories – (i) criminal, violent or suicidal; (ii) medical/psychological; (iii) other negative; (iv) other positive; and (v) other neutral – to illustrate word tendencies of the headlines and contents.…”

“…After the name change of schizophrenia in Japan in 2002, the old name was discarded almost completely within 3 years, especially in the TV media . The pace of adopting the new name has been remarkably slower in Taiwan and negative content has continued to dominate press articles related to schizophrenia.…”