The influence of information on social and occupational outcome in mental illness on the attitudes of students in turkey

Abstract

Background. In this article, we have tried to evaluate the influence of a series of determinants of stigmatization of mental illness. Method: 700 final year students of a University in Istanbul were asked to read one of 14 different hypothetical case stories. The stories contained different combinations of characteristics assumed to play a role in stigmatization. Each vignette was presented to 50 students. The stories were collected after five minutes and the following scales were completed: Characteristics Scale and Skill Assessment Scale. Analysis was conducted on each scale. Results: We found a statistically significant difference among the groups given different hypothetical cases (vignettes). According to the post-hoc analysis, only the subjects given the vignette in which social and occupational outcome information were lacking showed statistically significant difference from the rest of the population. Conclusion: This study suggests that information on social and occupational outcome of mental illness influences the general perception of the mentally ill.