Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Stigma, discrimination and prejudice against mental diseases, those who suffer from them and their families are common everywhere. To reduce stigma in schizophrenia is essential for a better outcome of the disease in each patient. Stigma interferes with the detection of the illness, with adherence to treatment, with rehabilitation and with social reinsertion. Stigma is everywhere in schizophrenia, from within the family itself to the health care system and into society at large. The WPA has developed a Program to fight the stigma of schizophrenia consisting on several modules: 1) Instructions on how to implement a campaign. 2) A monograph in schizophrenia. 3) A summary of the experiences in the sites where the program has been tested. 4) Further modules which include information on similar campaigns and material such as leaflets, books and videos and concrete examples of discrimination. A pilot study of the WPA Program was carried out in Madrid in 1999. A survey was undertaken to identify target population and specific messages, showing little knowledge about the disease and a small stigma amount. It was decided not to carry out an awareness campaign in the population, which has the risk of increasing stigma in parallel to being increased in awareness but to explore the amount of stigma in the environment closer to the patient such as patients themselves, relatives, neighbours and health services staff. The stigma degree was much more significant. Activities related to this group of people were undertaken specially by training psychiatrists to identify stigma and discrimination and to fight it. The outcome showed a great satisfaction among patients, relatives and physicians. A pilot media campaign was also undertaken. In previous years there was no information about schizophrenia in mass media only news on incidental problems of patients with schizophrenia. After the campaign news on the disease itself appeared in mass media. The Madrid experience shows that the WPA Program strategies, based on doing population research and adapting the campaign to local needs, are most appropriate and that an anti-stigma campaign can be carried out with succes. The same experience has been repeated in the year 2000 and part of 2001 in the whole of Spain. Health authorities of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, the City Council, the Department of Health and Consumption and the Department of Social Affairs and the INSALUD (National Institute of Health) were very helpful with the campaign. The program is supported by an unrestricted grant by Eli Lilly and various institutions and foundations have also collaborated.
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PMID:[Fight against schizophrenia stigma]. 1164 65

This paper reports the findings of a study investigating the smoking behaviours of a community-based psychiatric population. Using a qualitative, grounded theory approach, the four diagnostic categories of schizophrenia, bi-polar affective disorder, depression, and personality disorder were studied (24 interviews in total) in order to identify similarities and differences in smoking behaviours and perceptions of links between illness and cigarette smoking. A number of theoretical constructs emerged from the data, many of which confirm and enhance current understandings of issues, such as the role of cigarettes in managing the symptoms of illness. However, several themes not found in the existing literature also emerged. Smoking was found to play a significant existential role in the lives of participants: alleviating the effects of stigma, promoting positive and negative freedoms, and providing core needs as part of quality of life decisions. Perceptions of the nature and degree of interaction between psychiatric symptoms and the 'need' to smoke were also found to be significant. Variations in smoking between the different diagnostic groups were also found, in particular in the process of smoking itself the nature of the nicotine dependence as predominantly physical or psychological, attitudes towards the quitting process and sense of control, and the degree of significance of existential factors. The research findings suggest that we may be able to add new methods to our current ways of intervening to assist people with a mental illness who want to quit smoking. Differences in perceptions and patterns of use suggest that intervention may be more effective if psychiatric diagnosis is also taken into consideration. Because the paper is descriptive and hypothesis generating, its findings need to be tested using a larger sample.
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PMID:Smoking and quitting: a qualitative study with community-living psychiatric clients. 1182 Jun 84

Despite the worldwide shift from inpatient to community-based treatment for individuals with severe mental illness, Japanese psychiatric services remain hospital based. In 1998, Japan had 29 psychiatric beds per 10,000 persons, twice as many as in most European countries and five times as many as in the United States (1). The reasons for Japan's slow transition to a community-based mental health system are both economic and cultural. For instance, 90 percent of psychiatric beds are in private for-profit hospitals. There is little incentive for inpatient facilities to discharge patients promptly, because the Japanese health care system provides universal coverage with virtually unlimited reimbursement for inpatient services, and the government does not have a mechanism for financing the relocation of resources from hospitals to communities (2). In addition, the stigma associated with mental illness in Japanese families is high (3). Thus a patient's primary residence is the psychiatric hospital, and opportunities are provided for periodic visits from the family.However, psychiatric rehabilitation principles and practices are beginning to take root in Japan. Anzai and his colleagues at the Matsuzawa Psychiatric Hospital in Tokyo have adapted an empirically validated skills training program to prepare patients with schizophrenia for life in the community after discharge from the hospital. In this column, they report the results of a randomized controlled trial of this approach in an inpatient facility serving a large urban center.
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PMID:Training persons with schizophrenia in illness self-management: a randomized controlled trial in Japan. 1198 1

Many individuals with schizophrenia are devalued and discriminated against because of their mental illness. There has been only limited study of how individuals with schizophrenia experience mental illness stigma. We evaluated 74 stable outpatients with schizophrenia receiving community care. Study participants were interviewed with the Consumer Experiences of Stigma Questionnaire (CESQ), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and several social functioning measures. On the CESQ, all but one respondent indicated having at least one stigma experience. The most frequently reported CESQ items were respondents' worry about being viewed unfavorably because of their psychiatric illness (70%) and avoidance of telling others about it (58%). Many respondents also indicated having heard offensive statements (55%) and media accounts (43%) about persons with psychiatric disorders. Socioeconomic variables, but not symptoms or social functioning measures, were related to the extent of stigma and discrimination experiences. These results document the extent to which persons with mental illness experience negative reactions from others. Strategies are needed to enhance how persons with schizophrenia cope with stigma.
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PMID:Experiences of stigma among outpatients with schizophrenia. 1204 14

The effects of stereotype suppression on psychiatric stigma were investigated in two studies. In experiment 1, 52 participants were presented with a photograph of someone labeled with schizophrenia and instructed to write a passage describing a day in that person's life. Half of the participants were instructed to avoid using schizophrenia-related stereotypes in their passages (the stereotype suppression condition). Participants were then presented with a photograph of a different individual labeled with schizophrenia and asked to write another passage with stereotype suppression instructions omitted. The results showed that while stereotype suppression occurred for the first passage, the expected rebound effects were not observed in the second passage. Furthermore, the results were unchanged when participants' prior experience with persons with mental illness was considered. In a second study, the effects of stereotype suppression on behavior (i.e. seating distance from a person with schizophrenia) were examined in 58 participants. While the stereotype suppression instructions resulted in less stereotypical passages, replicating the results of study 1, no rebound effects on behavior were observed. A non-significant trend was observed whereby previous contact with persons with mental illness was associated with less social distance from someone with schizophrenia. Implications of the findings for reducing psychiatric stigma are discussed.
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PMID:The effects of stereotype suppression on psychiatric stigma. 1204 50

The experiences of people with schizophrenia exist on a continuum with normal functioning. Thinking about schizophrenia and psychosis in this way is a far greater antidote to stigma than regarding people with schizophrenia as having a collection of abstract symptoms and as categorically different from the rest of humanity because of their diagnosis. This article explains the reasons behind many of the symptoms experienced by people with schizophrenia. The author gives a first-hand account of how the condition has affected his life.
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PMID:Making sense of psychosis. Part 1. Understanding one man's schizophrenic experience. 1235 17

Schizophrenia has been found to be one of the most stigmatising conditions. To the present, most research on stigma related to mental illness has drawn conclusions on the adverse reactions faced by people with schizophrenia from studies on public attitudes or analogue behavioural studies. The views of those exposed to the stigmatising reactions, however, has largely been absent. Aiming to explore stigma from the subjective perspective of people with schizophrenia, a focus group study was carried out at the four centres involved in the WPA Global Programme against Stigma and Discrimination because of Schizophrenia in Germany. In order to get a comprehensive picture of how stigma affects the lives of schizophrenic patients, collateral information was sought from relatives and mental health professionals. The focus groups enquired about concrete stigmatisation experiences of the patients and incidences of stigma witnessed by the other two groups. Focus group sessions were tape-recorded and transcripts were coded using an inductive method. Results reveal four dimensions of stigma: interpersonal interaction, structural discrimination, public images of mental illness and access to social roles. Examples are given for the views of patients, relatives and mental health professionals on each of the four stigma types. The consequences for conceptualisations of stigma and the development of effective strategies to reduce stigma and discrimination because of schizophrenia are discussed.
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PMID:Subjective experiences of stigma. A focus group study of schizophrenic patients, their relatives and mental health professionals. 1289 7

The Basel Project on Psychiatry and the Printed Media has focussed on the role of the media in the development and enhancement of prejudice and stigma against the mentally ill. Analyzing the reporting of the German national paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on schizophrenia we show a gap between the competent reporting on the illness schizophrenia and a devaluating use of schizophrenia as a metaphor. This is of special importance since almost three fifth of the identified articles (48 of 83) use schizophrenia as a metaphor.
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PMID:[Schizophrenia in the German national paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung -- a didactic play]. 1252 76

This study examines attitudes, of adult users of mental health services, towards hospital and home treatment in a crisis or emergency. A comparison was made between South Asian clients (n = 35) and white residents of the British Isles (n = 26) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia as defined by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD 10). The aim was to broaden the knowledge base of the psychiatric service providers in an under-researched area. Data were collected using a structured 15-item questionnaire, measured on a five-point Likert scale. Although both groups of respondents expressed preference for home treatment, the reasons stated differed. There were statistical differences (P = 0.05) in five of the 15 items, including diet, stigma, treatment concordance, religious practices and faith healing, which form the bulk of the discussion. Greater client satisfaction is conditional upon a quality of care responsive to individual needs. These needs may vary according to ethnicity, religious beliefs, diet, language and family life, among other factors. As the cultural constitution of Britain continues to alter, it is increasingly important that healthcare professionals are sensitive, knowledgeable and skilled in caring for such a culturally diverse population. In turn, this may avoid stereotyping or mislabelling.
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PMID:Users' attitudes towards home and hospital treatment: a comparative study between South Asian and white residents of the British Isles. 1266 30

The stigma associated with schizophrenia is pervasive, both in the community and among healthcare workers, and forms a real barrier to optimal recovery from the illness. The negative consequences of stigma include discrimination in housing, education and employment, and increased feelings of hopelessness in people with schizophrenia. Health professionals have a responsibility to improve their own attitudes and behaviour towards people with schizophrenia so they do not contribute to the stigma. Educational campaigns aimed at people in the community and media personnel could help to demystify mental illness and reduce the portrayal of offensive stereotypes of people with schizophrenia.
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PMID:Reducing mental illness stigma and discrimination - everybody's business. 1272 May 21


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