Stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with severe and persistent mental illness in assertive community treatment settings

Jing Ye, Timothy F Chen, Diane Paul, Rebecca McCahon, Sumitra Shankar, Alan Rosen and Claire L O’Reilly

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2016, vol. 62, issue 6, 532-541

Abstract: Aims: To describe the perceived experiences of stigma and discrimination among people living with severe and persistent mental illness in assertive community treatment (ACT teams) settings in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Methods: The Discrimination and Stigma Scale (DISC) was used in this cross-sectional study with people living with severe and persistent mental illness. The DISC is a reliable and valid, quantitative and qualitative instrument used to explore and measure levels of negative, anticipated and positive discrimination. Relevant clinical history and socio-demographic information were also collected. Results: A total of 50 clients participated, with 40 (80%) reporting experienced negative discrimination in at least one life area. Negative discrimination was most commonly experienced in being avoided or shunned ( n =25, 50%), by neighbours ( n =24, 48%) and family ( n =23, 46%). Anticipated discrimination was common, with half of participants ( n =25, 50%) feeling the need to conceal their mental health diagnosis. Conclusion: Discrimination was highly prevalent in everyday aspects of life. While healthcare professionals often tend to increase perceived stigma and discrimination, this was only experienced in interactions with general health professionals, while interactions with ACT team members decreased perceived stigma and increased positive discrimination. This indicates that healthcare professionals potentially have a significant role in reducing stigma and discrimination in mental health and that such an effect may be optimised in an ACT team setting.

Keywords: Schizophrenia; mental disorders; discrimination; social stigma; mental health services; healthcare professionals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764016651459 (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:sae:socpsy:v:62:y:2016:i:6:p:532-541

DOI: 10.1177/0020764016651459

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().