Psychology concepts and applications

Lazowski, L., Koller, M., Stuart, H., & Milev, R. (2012). Stigma and Discrimination in People Suffering with a Mood Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study. Depression Research and Treatment, 9.

Lazowski, Koller, Stuart, and Milev (2012), examined the stigma of mental illness in a research. They point out that the stigma inhibits the recovey process. Their main objective of this study approved by the Queen's University Health Science and A-liated Teaching Hospitals Research Ethics Board is to establish the extent to which individuals with mood disorder are stigmatized. In this research they refer to the defination of stigma in terms of the five components according to Link and Phelan (2001). They state that these components work where the stigmatized person has minimal power. The authors assert that there exists a databank of studies focusing on scial stigma of people with mental disorder such as prejudice and discrimination based on stereotypes associated with the condition. However, little of these studies focus on the percepectives of people with mental illness. It has been established that the available research on the perspective of the mentally ill reveal that stigma is an impedence in the treatment process andcould hamper an individual decision to seek treatment.

This study hypothesizes that having a bipolar disorder is associated with more stigma than having unipolar depression. On the same line, earlier onset, unemployment, and previous hospitalizations of an individual leads to greater stigma. In this study two scales were used, ?fteen questions in the Stigma Experiences Scale requiring "yes," "unsure" and "no," the second scale, of seven questions is the Stigma Impact Scale, here, four of the questions rate the degree to which stigma negatively affect the persons quality of life including, social contacts, family relations as well as self-Esteem and the other three rate the degree to which stigma negatively affect the population's family's quality of life, social contacts, and family relations. The population included patients attending a mood disorders outpatient clinic. They were required to complete a questionaire on their experiences with stigma. The questionaire was used to assess stigma experiences defined as negative perception other people hold towards mentally ill people. Consequently, one and two-way frequency distribution with propotions was used to describe the social clinical charecteristics of the population. The consistency of these scales were assessed using the Kuder-Richardson (KR 20) reliability coe-cient for the experiences scale. The study regressed major depression against Bipolar Disorder on a separate stigma subscale. Confounding was lacking in this model and involved variables with statistical significance. Only the population that answered all scale questions that featured in the analysis.

The results of this study were tabulated into three categories. The majority of the constituents of the first table were females between 40 and 59 years. Two thirds were college graduates, but less than a third were employed. It emerged that two thirds had received treatment once at the diagnosis stage of the illness in ten years. The second table categorized respondents; it summarizes the percentage of items agreed on the stigma experience scale. It confirms that an average person would be afraid of a mentally ill individual and as a result causing low self-esteem and inferiority perception on them. The third table summarized the mean score and the reliability coefficient for the study items scale. For those with bipolar, there was a statistically significant difference (Lazowski, Koller, Stuart, & Milev, 2012, p. 3).

The research reported four findings. The first one was that people experiencing mood disorders are stigmatized. In addition, the second fining negated the hypothesis, as the diagnostic group did not find any difference in the stigma experienced by the study population as indicated by the Stigma Experience Scales. The third finding was that the diagnostic group differentiated based on the stigma effects. Those with bipolar disorder indicated greater psychological effect of stigma for themselves and their families. The last finding was that the exposure to stigmatizing experiences was the greatest factor in predicting stigma effect, greater than any other socio-demographic characteristic.