Investigating stigma attitudes towards people with mental illness among residents and house officers: an Egyptian study

Abstract

Background: Stigma is a basic component of the negative discrimination that people with mental illness experience every day. It blocks access to facilities that have been created to help people with mental illness. Furthermore, the attitudes held by people with authority (including clinical staff and officers) towards people with mental illness are likely to influence their attitude towards them and hence the experience and treatment outcome of the patients. The aim of this work is to study and compare the attitudes of Egyptian residents of different clinical specialties and house officers towards patients with mental illness. The current study aimed to study the attitudes of Egyptian medical residents and house officers towards patients with mental illness and compare between both groups. This cross-sectional comparative study was designed to assess 150 residents and 201 house officers at Ain Shams University Hospitals by using the Mental Illness Clinician Attitude Scale version 4 (MICA-4) and newly designed questions related to stigma. Results: The study revealed that the scores of MICA questionnaire were significantly lower than the cut point for negative attitude in both residents and house officers (P < 0.0001). In addition, there was a trend of an increase in MICA scores throughout the three levels of seniority but with no statistically significant difference. Furthermore, there was no statistical significant finding regarding the majority of MICA items or stigma sheet questions across the different specialties. Conclusion: Stigma is one of the most disabling factors that prevent people with mental illness to live a normal social and occupational life and thus receive a good quality of life and equal chance of medical health care as other non-psychiatric patients.

Stigma of mental illness and its association with empathic abilities in mental health trainees.

“…Supporting this possibility was our finding that participants who were more senior in their training or had more education (i.e., postgraduate degree) reported lower scores on dangerousness and segregation. This is consistent with some prior research (e.g., Abi Doumit et al, 2019) but not others (Eissa et al, 2020; Mukherjee et al, 2002). It is possible that other factors contribute to stigmatizing attitudes.…”

“…Considering each of the AQ factors, pity, avoidance, and coercion exhibited the highest mean scores. These results suggest that mental health trainees hold generally positive attitudes toward patients with mental illness which is consistent with previous studies including psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, nonpsychiatry doctors, and health care providers (Eissa et al, 2020;Oliveira et al, 2020;Richa & Naddaf, 2009;Sandhu et al, 2019).…”

“…Studies conducted more recently were controversial. While some studies reported generally positive attitudes toward people with mental illness, mainly among psychiatrists, others showed that professionals typically characterized people with mental illness with negative attributes (Eissa et al, 2020; Nordt et al, 2006; Oliveira et al, 2020; Sandhu et al, 2019). These negative attributes and stereotypes will lead to devaluing, social discrimination, and coercive professional measures.…”

Stigma Attitudes Towards People with Mental Illness among Professionals Working in a Psychiatric Hospital

“…In line with previous work we used mean and standard deviation and set the cut--off point at 56 (16 questions with 6 Likert score answers, with the midpoint being 3.5, therefore 16 questions × 3.5 midpoint = 56). 18 Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS (version 25.0). Continuous variables such as age and years of professional experience were expressed as mean ± standard deviation, whereas categorical variables such as gender, professional category and contact with mental illness were presented as frequencies (%).…”

Women, Disability, and Culture

“…when society reinforces the experience of inferiority perceived by the sick, when economic, cultural and political ideologies keep these people in a state of inferiority, not recognizing any chance of improvement (Hofman, 2016). Although refuted by numerous scientific evidence, the prejudices remain even among health workers, as several studies have highlighted (Pinfold et al, 2005;Nordt et al, 2006;Szeto & Dobson, 2010;Gabbidon et al, 2013;Hansson et al, 2013;Morgado et al, 2013;Eissa et al, 2020). Moreover, a pattern of gender discrimination, with women encountering superior rates of anticipated discrimination than men, was highlighted by researchers (Farrelly et al, 2014;Koschorke et al, 2014).…”