Past research on attitudes toward the mentally ill has produced conflicting results, due in part to methodological problems. The present study examined this issue using a more sophisticated design. Randomly, 600 residents of Delaware County Indiana were chosen from the telephone directory to be the recipients of a mail survey. Of these, 206 responded, yielding a return rate of 34.5%. Each subject was randomly assigned to either the experimental group that read a case vignette which described a hypothetical mental patient, or the control group which read about a medically ill patient. In both conditions there were three levels of severity of behavior. Thus, three cases described hypothetical patients labeled as mentally ill with a range of severity of psychopathology, and three described comparably behaving medical controls. It was found that the mentally ill were rejected significantly more than medical controls at each level of severity. Respondents also rated the mentally ill as less predictable, and having less hopeful outcomes, than the medical controls. In addition, beliefs about mental illness were not sufficient to account for all rejection. Finally, no demographic characteristics of the population were found to significantly correlate with rejection. / Department of Psychological Science

No description available.

The Ethnic Mental Illness (EMI) Scale, a questionnaire to discriminate European and Hispanic attitudes toward mental illness, was developed. Fifty-one college students of Hispanic ethnicity and 194 college students of European ethnicity completed a 150 item questionnaire measuring attitudes toward mental illness. A cross-validation sample of 50 Hispanic students and 194 European students ethnicity yielded 15 items that reliably differentiated the two groups. Based upon content, the 15 items were grouped into six categories: hopefulness, trust, biological aspects of mental illness, childhood origins, finances, and sex differences. Items which did not discriminate Hispanics and Europeans are described, as these items are possible indicators of common attitudes toward mental illness. A group of 66 Asian students also participated in the study. The items which differentiate Asians from Hispanics and Europeans are described. These items were not cross-validated.

The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes of community psychiatric nurses, mental health professionals and primary health care nurses towards mental illness, mentally ill people and deinstitutionalisation. The sample of this study comprised 38 community psychiatric nurses, 20 mental health professionals and 55 primary health care nurses, all of whom were from Durban, Pietermaritzburg and their surrounding areas. Each participant completed a biographical questionnaire, the Opinions of Mental Illness scale (1962) and the Community Mental Health Ideology scale (1967). Four focus groups on attitudes towards deinstitutionalisation, comprising 25 participants in total, were also conducted. Statistical analyses were computed using the Statistical Programme for Social Scientists. Krueger's (1984) methodology was employed to analyse the focus groups results. The quantitative results revealed that community psychiatric nurses, mental health professionals and primary health care nurses generally tended to express neutral attitudes towards mental illness, mentally ill people and deinstitutionalisation. Significant differences in attitudes towards mental illness and mentally ill people were found amongst respondents in different categories of race, educational levels and treatment of a friend for a mental illness. The focus groups results revealed that while the community psychiatric nurses and mental health professionals were positive about the concept of deinstitutionalisation, they did not favour it's implementation within the current South African economic and social contexts. Based on their fear of mentally ill patients, the primary health care nurses displayed negative attitudes towards the concept of deinstitutionalisation and were also cautious about it's implementation within the current South African context. Implications and recommendations arising from this study are discussed. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1998.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 16, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 50-54).

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

The effect of psychoeducation on opinions about mental illness, attitudes toward help seeking, and expectations about psychotherapy were investigated. One group served as a control, one group read a written lecture on information about mental illness, and one group read a written lecture on information about psychotherapy. The control group, and experimental groups immediately after reading the lecture, completed demographic information, Attitudes Toward Help Seeking-Short Form, Expectations About Counseling-Brief Form, Nunnally Conceptions of Mental Illness Questionnaire, and three College Adjustment Scales (Depression, Anxiety, Self Esteem). Participants were asked to complete the same measures four weeks after the initial assessment. Results: No significant improvement in attitudes toward help seeking was demonstrated in either experimental group, at either time of testing. Expectations about psychotherapy were significantly improved in both experimental groups, which remained significant at Time 2. Opinions about mental illness demonstrated an immediate significant improvement in attitudes with the mental illness lecture group, however this effect did not remain at Time 2. The psychotherapy lecture group did not have significantly improved opinions about mental illness at either time of testing. The control group did not produce any significant changes between Time 1 and Time 2 testing. Experimental group scores demonstrated similarity with those who had previous experience with psychotherapy. No relationship was found between level of adjustment and attitudes toward help seeking, expectations about psychotherapy, or opinions about mental illness at either time of testing.

This dissertation consists of three studies to assess nurses’ attitudes toward persons with mental illness. The first study was an integrative review of literature which revealed that surveyed nurses across 20 countries and three continents had mixed attitudes toward people with mental illness. While those attitudes mirrored attitudes of the general public and health providers in the United States, none of the identified studies explored nurses’ attitudes toward people with mental illness in the United States and none included a theoretical framework, showing several gaps in knowledge. Therefore, in the second paper of this dissertation two leading theories regarding stigma were analyzed and compared in order to select the best theoretical framework to guide a survey of psychiatric nurses’ attitudes toward the mentally ill, which comprises the third study of this dissertation. The Modified Labeling Theory (MLT) and the Cognitive Behavioral Models (CBM) were analyzed and evaluated. Since the MLT had strong empirical evidence, it was selected to guide the quantitative study that explored nurses’ attitudes toward people with mental illness. This exploration of 146 mental health workers and registered nurses’ attitudes in a 270-bed psychiatric hospital in New York examined three areas: it assessed respondents’ beliefs about devaluation and discrimination of people with mental illness and factors related to these beliefs; compared respondents’ expressed stigmatizing actions toward patients with schizophrenia or depression versus those with diabetes but no mental illness; and it assessed the extent to which study results were consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of the MLT. In general, respondents expressed the belief that people with mental illness would be devaluated and discriminated and expressed stronger desire for social distance from a person with schizophrenia than depression. Even though the respondents did not express a desire for social distance from a person with depression, they indicated their preference to be closer to a person with diabetes. Finally, the results of the study were consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of the MLT, confirming that the MLT is appropriate for use as a guiding theoretical framework for future research in nursing. Implications for future research, nursing education and practice are discussed.

This study tested whether participants exposed to a vignette describing an individual experiencing symptoms of depression, which included only the specific diagnosis label of "depression," would report significantly less stigmatized responses than participants exposed to an otherwise identical vignette which included only the non-specific diagnosis label "mental illness." The study is grounded in past research on stigmatization of mental illness and is informed by three theoretical frameworks, the social identity perspective, attribution theory, and labeling theory. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of the two alternate vignettes, then respond to a series of measures testing desire for social distance, negative emotion (affective reaction), beliefs about people with mental illness, and perceived dangerousness of the character in response to the vignette they viewed. The results showed that labelling the character in the vignettes as struggling with "mental illness" did lead to greater perceived dangerousness of the character described, although labelling did not lead to more stigmatization in any of the other measures. This research demonstrated that people tend to consider a character in a vignette as less trustworthy and more of a risk based solely on the label "mental illness." The experiment also tested if people who have had a personal relationship with someone who has experienced mental illness will have less stigmatized responses to mental illness vignettes, but no significant difference was shown. Overall, the results imply that use of specific language in communication labelling an individual as experiencing a mental health condition is less stigmatizing than non-specific language and may improve chances for successful treatment-seeking and future patient outcomes.