How Anti-Substance Abuse Campaigns Influence Substance Abusers’ Psychological Health in Chinese Communities: The Mediating Role of Perceived Stigma

Yonghui Zeng, Li Han, Yu Cheng and Cindy Xinshan Jia
Additional contact information
Yonghui Zeng: School of Economics and Statistics, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Li Han: Department of Social Work, School of Public Administration, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510640, China
Yu Cheng: School of Education Science and Law, Xiangnan University, Chenzhou 423043, China
Cindy Xinshan Jia: Department of Social Work, School of Public Administration, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510640, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 11, 1-12

Abstract: The current study explored how anti-substance abuse campaigns influence substance abusers’ psychological health through the perception of stigma. The study is based on a sample of substance abusers who received community-based treatments ( n = 3457) and used structural equation modeling to estimate the role of perceived stigma in mediating between perceptions of overstatement of harm conveyed in anti-substance abuse campaigns and psychological outcomes. The results revealed that substance abusers’ perception of overstatement of the harm caused by the substances and substance abusers enhanced their perceived stigma and impaired their psychological health in terms of anxiety, depression, and somatization, through both direct and indirect pathways. The results advocate for proper strategies in the design of anti-substance abuse campaigns. Possible initiatives to reduce substance abusers’ perceived stigma are recommended.

Keywords: substance abusers; perceived stigma; psychological health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/11/6687/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/11/6687/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:11:p:6687-:d:828039

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().