Challenging the Public Stigma of Mental Illness: A Meta-Analysis of Outcome Studies

• Published in: Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) Vol. 63; no. 10; pp. 963 - 973
• Main Authors: Corrigan, Patrick W, Morris, Scott B, Michaels, Patrick J, Rafacz, Jennifer D, Rüsch, Nicolas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Arlington, VA American Psychiatric Association 01.10.2012; American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Attitude to Health; Biological and medical sciences; Clinical outcomes; Female; Health Education - methods; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Disorders; Mentally Ill Persons - psychology; Meta-analysis; Middle Aged; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Social Change; Social Discrimination - prevention & control; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; Social Stigma; Stereotyping; Systematic review; Young Adult; Social environment; Human; Stigma; Mental health; Mental disorder; Review; Public health; Metaanalysis
• ISSN: 1075-2730; 1557-9700
• DOI: 10.1176/appi.ps.201100529

Stigma associated with mental illness has malignant effects on the lives of people with serious mental illnesses. Many strategies have been used to combat public stigma—the prejudice and discrimination endorsed by the general population. To identify the most effective approaches, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of data from 72 outcome studies in 14 countries. Overall, strategies that include education about mental illness and contact with people who have mental illness are effective. For adults, contact appears to be more effective, whereas education seems to work best among adolescents. ObjectivePublic stigma and discrimination have pernicious effects on the lives of people with serious mental illnesses. Given a plethora of research on changing the stigma of mental illness, this article reports on a meta-analysis that examined the effects of antistigma approaches that included protest or social activism, education of the public, and contact with persons with mental illness.MethodsThe investigators heeded published guidelines for systematic literature reviews in health care. This comprehensive and systematic review included articles in languages other than English, dissertations, and population studies. The search included all articles from the inception of the databases until October 2010. Search terms fell into three categories: stigma, mental illness (such as schizophrenia and depression), and change program (including contact and education). The search yielded 72 articles and reports meeting the inclusion criteria of relevance to changing public stigma and sufficient data and statistics to complete analyses. Studies represented 38,364 research participants from 14 countries. Effect sizes were computed for all studies and for each treatment condition within studies. Comparisons between effect sizes were conducted with a weighted one-way analysis of variance.ResultsOverall, both education and contact had positive effects on reducing stigma for adults and adolescents with a mental illness. However, contact was better than education at reducing stigma for adults. For adolescents, the opposite pattern was found: education was more effective. Overall, face-to-face contact was more effective than contact by video.ConclusionsFuture research is needed to identify moderators of the effects of both education and contact.