Location and stigma: A survey of community attitudes to mental illness Part II: Community mental health facilities-anonymity or invisibility

Abstract

A community survey conducted by trained lay interviewers assessed the responses of a quota sample of 154 local residents to the presence of a community mental health service (Hope Street) in three wards of Northtown. The respondents were asked about their knowledge of mental health facilities, and about their attitudes to mental illness, using some of the same questions from the MORI survey of 1979. As in previous studies the proportion of people who knew about Hope Street was low (33%), and much lower than knowledge of other community and health facilities in the same area. The findings suggest that while there is a degree of greater openness about mental illness, stigma remains pervasive, and has changed little over the past ten years. Knowledge about mental illness is clearly greater and better developed in some respondents than others, and people who were less embarrassed by mental illness were more likely to know someone receiving help and treatment at the community facility.