Strategies to Fight Stigma toward People with Mental Disorders: Perspectives from Different Stakeholders

Abstract

This study aims to provide a more complete and exhaustive perspective on the whole range of potential strategies to fight stigma by considering the perspectives of different stakeholders. Delegates to a Canadian conference were invited to participate in a survey that focused on stigma, from which the responses to the following question were analyzed: tell us briefly what you do to reduce prejudice and stigma toward people with a diagnosis of mental disorder? From 253 participants, 15 categories of strategies to fight stigma were identified from the verbatim (e.g., sharing/encouraging disclosure). These categories fell under six main themes: education, contact, protestation, person centered, working on recovery and social inclusion, and reflexive consciousness. The occurrence of these themes was different among stakeholders (clinical, organizational, and experiential knowledge). For example, people with mental disorders (experiential knowledge) often mentioned contact and person centered strategies, while mental health professionals (clinical knowledge) preferred education and working on recovery and social inclusion strategies. The results from this study highlight the need to pay more attention to the concept of disclosure of mental disorders in the process for de-stigmatization. Future studies are needed to assess the impact of the emerging strategies to fight stigma in the community.

Union Perceptions of Factors Related to the Return to Work of Employees with Depression

“…We recommend that the disclosure of personal information remain the employee's decision and that each situation be evaluated individually. The role of stakeholders would then be to ensure that employees are aware of the possible repercussions of their decisions [14,49,50].…”

Estigma E Transtorno Mental: Perspectiva Do Terapeuta Ocupacional

“…Schulze 5 (p.138-9) aborda as experiências de estigma das pessoas com transtorno mental e seus familiares na relação com os profissionais da saúde mental, na qual as atitudes apresentadas por estes foram percebidas como desanimadoras ou desencorajadoras e reduzindo o paciente aos déficits de sua doença. Outras atitudes de estigma percebidas nos profissionais são: falta de interesse nos contextos e nas necessidades do indivíduo com transtornos mentais e exclusão da família no plano de tratamento 6,7,8 .…”

Strategies to reduce the stigma toward people with mental disorders in Iran: stakeholders’ perspectives

“…Stigmatizing attitudes toward people with mental disorders have been observed in different societies and groups, including in families, co-workers [8], mental health providers [9], and students [8, 10]. Stigma may also be strengthened by patients [10, 11] who may adopt self-stigmatizing behaviors.…”

“…Such patients might suffer from many unavoidable difficulties such as discrimination, unequal rights and unemployment [12]. This is also true in finding jobs and shelter, entering higher education, obtaining insurance, and accessing to the judicial system and health support services [10]. There are two ways for rejecting psychiatric patients through prejudice and discrimination: directly (discriminative behaviors) and indirectly (marginalization) [13].…”

“…In spite of various research projects on stigma reduction programs [14, 15], few studies have examined how to overcome stigma toward people with mental disorders [10]. Thornicroft et al found that social contact is the most effective type of intervention to improve stigma-related knowledge and attitudes in the short-term [3].…”