Improvement for most, but not all: changes in newspaper coverage of mental illness from 2008 to 2019 in England

Abstract

Aims Time to Change, an anti-stigma programme in England, has worked to reduce stigma relating to mental illness in many facets of life. Newspaper reports are an important factor in shaping public attitudes towards mental illnesses, as well as working as a barometer reflecting public opinion. This study aims to assess the way that coverage of mental health topics and different mental illnesses has changed since 2008. Method Articles covering mental health in 18 different newspapers were retrieved using keyword searches on two randomly chosen days of each month in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2019. A content analysis approach using a structured coding framework was used to extract information from the articles. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the change in odds of each hypothesised stigmatising or anti-stigmatising element occurring in 2019 compared to 2008 and 2016 with a Wald test to assess the overall significance of year as a predictor in the model. Further logistic regression models were used to assess the association between the diagnosis that an article was about and the odds that it was stigmatising, and whether this relationship is moderated by year of publication. Results A total of 6731 articles were analysed, and there was a significant increase in anti-stigmatising articles in 2019 compared to 2008 (OR 3.16 (2.60–3.84), p < 0.001) and 2016 (OR 1.40 (1.16–1.69), p < 0.001). Of the 5142 articles that specified a diagnosis, articles about schizophrenia were 6.37 times more likely to be stigmatising than articles about other diagnoses (OR 6.37 (3.05–13.29) p < 0.001), and there was evidence that the strength of this relationship significantly interacted with the year an article was published (p = 0.010). Articles about depression were significantly less likely to be stigmatising (OR 0.59 (0.69–0.85) p = 0.018) than those about other diagnoses, while there was no difference in coverage of eating disorders v. other diagnoses (OR 1.37 (0.67–2.80) p = 0.386); neither of these relationships showed an interaction with the year of publication. Conclusion Anti-stigma programmes should continue to work with newspapers to improve coverage of mental illness. However, interventions should consider providing specific guidance and promote awareness of rarer mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, and evaluation should examine whether reductions in stigma extend to people with all mental illness diagnoses.

Is the self-reporting of mental health problems sensitive to public stigma towards mental illness? A comparison of time trends across English regions (2009-19)

“…On the other end, the role of structural stigma can be examined by looking at cross-country differences. Most studies have relied on the analysis of traditional media to assess national trends in public stigma, which could be contrasted with trends in self-reported mental health outcomes [30, 31]. The same could be done with social media, which is also likely to differ across countries [32, 33].…”

Leveraging Neuroscience to Fight Stigma Around Mental Health

“…Moreover, an analysis of attitudes toward, and perceptions of, diabetes and schizophrenia expressed via social media platforms revealed that tweets about schizophrenia tended to be less medically accurate and more likely to be sarcastic and negative in tone than those about diabetes (Joseph et al, 2015 ) 3 . On a more positive note, however, a recent study reported a trend towards less stigmatizing coverage of mental illness in the print media and increased internet-facilitated mental health literacy (chiefly with respect to treatment options and stories of recovery) among the public (Hildersley et al, 2020 ).…”

Charting an Alternative Course for Mental Health-Related Anti-Stigma Social and Behaviour Change Programmes

“…However, it is questionable how far representations of mental health and illness are unknown to the public. Experiences associated with mental ill-health are common in the public, such as hearing voices, hopelessness and worry, and lay communications commonly reference professionalised terminology and stigma explicitly [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Furthermore, the western canon is replete with narratives, iconography, and myths related to mental health and illness and its problematic linguistic forebearers of ‘madness’ and ‘insanity’ [ 25 , 41 , 42 , 43 ].…”