Attitudes towards people with depression and schizophrenia among social service workers in Denmark

Abstract

Background: Mental health-related stigma is a major public health issue, and is an obstacle to the possibility for successful treatment, recovery, and reintegration.

Aim: To examine attitudes towards mental illness among employees in the social services.

Methods: The study design was part of a large randomized trial, and data presented in this study are baseline data from this trial. Respondents completed a baseline questionnaire to assess the respondents’ attitudes.

Results: A significant difference was found between employees’ personal attitudes towards depression and schizophrenia. The same significant difference was found in the employees’ perceived attitudes. Furthermore, a significant difference was found between the employees’ personal and perceived attitudes. A significant difference was found between the respondents wish for social distance towards depression and schizophrenia in all cases, except regarding the willingness to provide a job at one’s own workplace.

Conclusion: Employees in the social services are comparable to the general public concerning attitudes towards mental illness.

Implications: The results indicate that the employees in social services could have great use of gaining more knowledge about mental illness and ways in which to recognize a mental illness, in order to be able to offer the right kind of help and reduce the treatment gap concerning people suffering from mental illness.

Keywords:

• Depression
• mental health
• schizophrenia
• social service workers
• stigma

Acknowledgements

The study is supported by the Danish foundation TrygFonden.

Disclosure statement

Per Vendsborg is an employee at the Mental Health Foundation in Denmark, the organization that implements and sells the MHFA training course. The other authors report no conflict of interests.

Notes on contributors

Kamilla Bjørkøe Jensen is a social anthropologist and research assistant at the Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Denmark. She does research in public mental health, stigma and child psychiatry. She works with qualitative research as well as clinical trials.

Per Vendsborg is a medical consultant at the Mental Health Foundation, Denmark. He does research in the areas of stigma, mental health and public health.

Carsten Hjorthøj is a senior researcher at the Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Denmark. He primarily does research in substance abuse and mental health, focusing mainly on cannabis abuse and psychosis.

Merete Nordentoft is a medical consultant at the Mental Health Centre Copenhagen and professor in psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is the initiator of IPSYCH and the driving force behind OPUS. She primarily works in the areas of psychoses and prevention of suicide.