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

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between perceived stigma and self-esteem among adults with schizophrenia. The sample was drawn from three outpatient public mental health clinics in Southern California in September to November 2002. The following selection criteria were used to identify 31 respondents: (1) a diagnosis of schizophrenia and (2) stable symptoms. Self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Stigma was measured using the Devaluation-Discrimination Measure. The strongest areas of stigma reported by those surveyed were related to hospitalization. The self-esteem of the respondents was moderately high. A Pearson's r correlation indicated that there was a significant, moderately strong correlation, with a higher level of perceived stigma associated with a lower level of self-esteem. Findings suggest that using a strengths-based approach and a recovery case management model is recommended to decrease stigma and promote self-esteem among persons with schizophrenia.
 ...
PMID:Self-esteem and stigma among persons with schizophrenia: implications for mental health. 1664 88

Family members of relatives with mental illness or drug dependence or both report that they are frequently harmed by public stigma. No population-based survey, however, has assessed how members of the general public actually view family members. Hence, the authors examined ways that family role and psychiatric disorder influence family stigma. A national sample (N = 968) was recruited for this study. A vignette design describing a person with a health condition and a family member was used. Family stigma related to mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, is not highly endorsed. Family stigma related to drug dependence, however, is worse than for other health conditions, with family members being blamed for both the onset and offset of a relative's disorder and likely to be socially shunned.
 ...
PMID:Blame, shame, and contamination: the impact of mental illness and drug dependence stigma on family members. 1675 99

In order to contribute to reduce the stigma related to schizophrenia and to improve clinical practice in the management of the disorder, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology changed in 2002 the old term for the disorder, "Seishin Bunretsu Byo" ("mind-split-disease"), into the new term of "Togo Shitcho Sho" ("integration disorder"). The renaming was triggered by the request of a patients' families group. The main reasons for the renaming were the ambiguity of the old term, the recent advances in schizophrenia research, and the deep-rooted negative image of schizophrenia, in part related to the long-term inhumane treatment of most people with the disorder in the past. The renaming was associated with the shift from the Kraepelinian disease concept to the vulnerability-stress model. A survey carried out seven months after renaming in all prefectures of Japan found that the old term had been replaced by the new one in about 78% of cases. The renaming increased the percentage of cases in which patients were informed of the diagnosis from 36.7% to 69.7% in three years. Eighty-six percent of psychiatrists in the Miyagi prefecture found the new term more suitable to inform patients of the diagnosis as well as to explain the modern concept of the disorder. The Japanese treatment guideline for "Togo Shitcho Sho" was developed in 2004 under the framework of the vulnerability-stress model.
 ...
PMID:Renaming schizophrenia: a Japanese perspective. 1675 98

This article is a qualitative investigation of the subjective experience of recovery from the perspective of persons living with schizophrenia-related disorders. An NIMH-sponsored ethnographic study of community outpatient clinics was completed for 90 persons taking second-generation antipsychotic medications. Research diagnostic criteria and clinical ratings were obtained in tandem with an anthropologically developed Subjective Experience of Medication Interview (SEMI) that elicits narrative data on everyday life and activities, medication and treatment, management of symptoms, expectations concerning recovery, and stigma. Ethnographic observations from diverse settings (clinics, public transportation, restaurants, homes) were also obtained. The primary findings are that recovery was experienced in relation to low levels of symptoms, the need to take medications to avoid hospitalization or psychotic episodes, and personal agency to struggle against the effects of illness. The majority of participants articulated their sense of illness recovery and expectation that their lives would improve. Improvement and recovery is an incremental, yet definitively discernable subjective process. Several problems were identified as part of this process surrounding cultural conflicts that generate the experience of ambivalence analyzed here as the "paradox of recovery without cure," irreconcilable "catch-22" dilemmas involving sacrifice (e.g., one must be "fat" or be "crazy"), and substantial stigma despite improvement in illness and everyday life experience.
 ...
PMID:The new paradigm of recovery from schizophrenia: cultural conundrums of improvement without cure. 1677 57

Up to one in four individuals in the US meet the diagnostic criteria for a mental illness in any given year and a significant proportion have severe or recurring illnesses (e.g. schizophrenia). Despite this prevalence, mental health services remain poorly funded, mental illness remains misunderstood and individuals with recurring illness are constrained to live lives characterized by isolation, under-employment, stigma and denial of rights. Here I examine the idea that this situation is attributable, at least in part, to the ways in which the freedom and power of the mentally ill are undermined by a range of factors, including: (i) dispersion of political power amongst interest groups, which, combined with the relatively wide distribution of the 'interest' of mental illness, has the paradoxical result that mental health interest groups do not command political power proportional to the number affected; (ii) systematic exclusion of the mentally ill from full participation in civic, social and political life (structural violence), resulting in a lack of emphasis on mental health on political agendas and the exclusion of certain policy options as possible responses and (iii) difficulties the mentally ill may experience recognizing or articulating their own needs the absence of effective health-care systems, and the absence of knowledge about alternative systems. I argue that the enhancement of individual agency is central to efforts to address this power gap, including: (i) rights-based approaches, involving the enhancement of national mental health legislation, improvement of advocacy, empowerment and guardianship processes and development of governance, accountability and quality procedures in mental health services; (ii) approaches based on enhancing direct political participation, including voter-registration programmes and development of larger, more effective interest groups and (iii) additional approaches, including increasing accountability throughout services, recognizing the effects of socio-political change on the context of care and adapting the concept of 'soft power' to strengthen advocacy programmes.
 ...
PMID:The power gap: freedom, power and mental illness. 1678 Oct 34

Research has paradoxically linked awareness of illness to both better function outcomes and lesser hope and self-esteem. One possible explanation for these findings is that acceptance of having schizophrenia may impact outcomes differently depending on the meanings the person attaches to this acceptance, particularly whether he or she accepts stigmatizing beliefs about mental illness. To explore this possibility we performed a cluster analysis of 75 persons with schizophrenia spectrum disorders based on single measures of insight using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, internalized stigma using the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Scale, and compared groups on concurrent assessments of hope and self-esteem. Three groups were produced by the cluster analyses: low in sight/mild stigma (n = 23), high insight/minimal stigma (n = 25), and high insight/moderate stigma (n = 27). As predicted, analysis of variance-comparing groups revealed that the high insight/moderate stigma group had significantly the lowest levels of hope on the Beck Hopelessness Scale and self-esteem using the Multidimensional Self-esteem Inventory. As predicted, the high insight/minimal stigma group also had significantly less impaired social function than the other groups. Implications for assisting persons to come to cope with awareness of illness and stigma are discussed.
 ...
PMID:Toward understanding the insight paradox: internalized stigma moderates the association between insight and social functioning, hope, and self-esteem among people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. 1689 25

Social anxiety disorder (SaD) or social phobia is a co-morbid affective disorder in schizophrenia, present in up to one in three individuals. We employ 'social rank' theory to predict that one pathway to social anxiety in schizophrenia is triggered by the anticipation of a catastrophic loss of social status that the stigma of schizophrenia can entail. A group of 79 people with a first episode of psychosis were assessed for social anxiety: hypotheses were tested comparing 23 socially anxious and 56 non-anxious patients on measures of cognitive appraisals of shame/stigma of psychosis and perceived social status, controlling for depression, psychotic symptoms and general psychopathology. Participants with social anxiety experienced greater shame attached to their diagnosis and felt that the diagnosis placed them apart from others, i.e., socially marginalised them and incurred low social status. We propose a stigma model of social anxiety that makes testable predictions about how the shame beliefs may contaminate social interaction and thereby exacerbate and maintain social phobia.
 ...
PMID:Social anxiety and the shame of psychosis: a study in first episode psychosis. 1700 58

European researchers have observed that schizophrenia is 3 times more frequent in immigrants than in native-born subjects. This increased risk is even higher in dark-skinned immigrants, and the second generation is more affected than the first one. Immigrant status is an important environmental risk factor not only for schizophrenia but also for other psychoses. The explanations proposed to date have been mainly related to epidemiological biases and psychological reasons, such as racism or social defeat, but no biological hypotheses have been tested so far. This article proposes two biological hypotheses related to changes in sun exposure, changes in diet, and stress associated with immigration, which would explain the increased risk for psychosis associated with immigrant status. (1) Vitamin D insufficiency has been proposed as a risk factor for schizophrenia. The main source of vitamin D is through photosynthesis by sun exposure, and dark skins need more sun exposure to maintain adequate blood levels. Vitamin D insufficiency in adulthood could explain why dark-skinned immigrants develop psychosis when moving to high latitude countries, and its insufficiency during pregnancy could explain why the observed risk is higher in the second generation. (2) The second hypothesis is that of epigenetics, with psychosis resulting from modifications in gene expression caused by changes in diet and/or stress related to immigration. The role of homocysteine and the vitamin B-complex, especially folic acid, in these changes in DNA transcription would vary according to the polymorphism of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene. The vitamin D insufficiency and epigenetics hypotheses are consistent with yet unexplained findings well known in the epidemiology of schizophrenia, such as the increased risk in the urban environment, the excess of winter births, the excess of schizophrenia births after maternal famine, and the shorter interbirth period before a schizophrenia birth. In order to test these hypotheses, epidemiological studies of psychosis and immigration should include objective measures of skin color, which is predicted to be a more important risk factor than ethnicity. They should measure vitamin D, homocysteine and vitamin B-complex status and assess the polymorphisms of the vitamin D receptors and the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene. If confirmed, these hypotheses would lead to effective and inexpensive preventive measures which would markedly decrease the rates of psychosis and schizophrenia, as well as the burden and stigma of these diseases, and greatly improve the mental health of immigrants.
 ...
PMID:Why are immigrants at increased risk for psychosis? Vitamin D insufficiency, epigenetic mechanisms, or both? 1751 23

Recovery is not the same as cure. Recovery from mental illness is the process of having more to life than just illness. It is an ongoing process rather than simply a goal that can be achieved. Recovery from the stigma of mental illness may be as difficult as recovery from the illness itself. Several common, but incorrect, beliefs can interfere with the recovery process. Myths include the belief that the illness has an inherently downhill course, that rehabilitation is useful only after stabilization, and that people with schizophrenia can only work at low-level jobs. People who have schizophrenia have reported that their own process of recovery was helped by their determination to get better, an understanding of the illness, taking personal responsibility, having friends who accept them, an optimistic attitude, and spiritual beliefs that help them find meaning in life.
 ...
PMID:Recovery from a psychiatrist's viewpoint. 1712 61

The World Psychiatric Association has been carrying out a major international programme aiming to reduce stigma and discrimination because of schizophrenia. The programme is under way in 19 countries. The paper gives a brief description of the programme and lists the lessons learned during its course.
 ...
PMID:Lessons from a 10-year global programme against stigma and discrimination because of an illness. 1713 75


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>