Analysis of the possible components of stigmatised attitudes towards depression and heroin dependence

Abstract

Aims and methods: Stigmatised attitudes towards people with mental illness are widespread. Researchers have suggested various attributes that may contribute to this. The project aimed to identify how some of these might contribute to stigmatised attitudes towards people with depression, schizophrenia and heroin addiction. Five short self-completion questionnaires were devised to measure public perception of mentally ill people regarding contagion, blameworthiness, dangerousness, treatability, and immorality. These were each posted to 150 participants selected at random from a representative panel of 400 members of the UK general public.

Results: About 106 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate 70%). Of the five components, dangerousness was the principle predictor of stigmatised attitudes towards heroin addiction, depression and schizophrenia – contributing almost half of the stigma-scale variance in the case of schizophrenia. Few other components contributed more than 15% of the stigma-scale variance). Treatability contributed relatively little of the stigma-scale variance (typically less than 5% of the variance).

Conclusion: The results suggest that challenging dangerous would be the most effective anti-stigma strategy for mental illness. In contrast, treatability contributed little to the variance in stigma scale scores and would not seem a very effective target for anti-stigma campaigns.

• Depression
• opiate dependence
• public opinion
• stigma and discrimination

Declaration of interest

All funding was provided by the authors. There are no conflicts of interest.