Citation

Economou M, Peppou LE, Kontoangelos K, Palli A, Tsaliagkou I, Legaki EM, Gournellis R, Papageorgiou C. Community Ment. Health J. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

First Department of Psychiatry, Medical School, Aigintion Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10597-019-00521-6

PMID

31863225

Abstract

To describe mental health workers' attitudes to severe mental illness and to explore its socio-demographic and professional correlates, including the influence of empathy. A total of 127 mental health staff working on the psychiatric hospitals of Attica participated in the study. Stigma was assessed with the Attitudes to Severe Mental Illness scale (ASMI) and the Greek Social Distance scale; whilst Empathy with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Participants' unfavourable attitudes to severe mental illness were limited to pessimism about recovery, difficulty in viewing people with mental illness as similar to other people and desire to keep distance in intimate encounters. Professional group and personal experience with mental illness were found to predict stigma. Only perspective taking was associated with both stigma measures; while Fantasy was positively correlated with social distance. Anti-stigma interventions in mental healthcare should prioritize nurses and psychiatrists and aim at enhancing perspective taking.

Language: en

Keywords

Iatrogenic stigma; Mental health workers; Perspective taking; Social distance; Stereotypes