Mental illness stigma among Romanian adolescents

Abstract

Research concerning adolescents is scarce, and we are far from understanding how adolescents stigmatize, and why. The objectives of the present study were to assess the extent to which adolescents from Romania stigmatize people with mental illness and to evaluate the strength and direction of the linear relationships between stigma subcomponents and willingness to seek help. Tenth grade students (N=232) completed questionnaires on familiarity with mental illness, mental health literacy, stereotypes, prejudice, emotional reactions, discrimination, and help-seeking behaviors. Participants scored low on familiarity with mental illness and mental health literacy. Also, they believed most people would devalue or discriminate against a psychiatric patient. Moreover, adolescents marginally endorsed the responsability and dangerousness stereotypes, they marginally experienced anger and fear but they strongly experienced pity, while manifesting acts of help avoidance, coercion and segregation. When it comes to help-seeking behaviors, adolescents were willing to seek hel in the form of family care, psychological treatment, and folk medicine. However, they are not willing to seek medical treatment. Furthermore, endorsing the responsibility stereotype, experiencing pity, manifesting help and coercion, are all associated with higher levels of willingness to seek help. Tailoring interventions to address these stigma subcomponents and stigma-related concepts should be a priority in order to improve mental health and mental health care, mainly because the rejecting behavior of others may bring greater disadvantage to the afflicted individuals than the mental condition itself. (Alina Zlati, Jennifer Oh, Adriana Baban)