{"title":"Mental Illness Stigma Expressed by Police to Police.","authors":"Heather Stuart","doi":"","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>This paper describes mental health related stigma expressed by police to police using a newly developed 11-item Police Officer Stigma Scale and reports on the preliminary psychometric properties (factor structure and internal reliability) of this scale.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>The scale used an indirect measurement approach adapted from the Perceived Devaluation and Discrimination Scale. Five themes appropriate to police culture were adapted and six additional items were added. Responses were rated on a 5-point agreement scale with an additional don't know option. Data were collected from officers attending a mandatory workshop (90.5% response).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Exploratory factor analysis showed the scale to be unidimensional and internally reliable (Cronbach's alpha was 0.82). The most endorsed items pertained to avoiding disclosure to a supervisor/manager or to a colleague (85% agreement), that most officers would expect discrimination at work (62%), and that most officers would not want a supervisor or manager who had a mental illness (62%).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Findings highlight that (a) Police-to-police mental illness stigma may be a particularly strong feature of police cultures; (b) police should be a focus for targeted anti-stigma interventions; and</p>","PeriodicalId":49288,"journal":{"name":"Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PSYCHIATRY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: This paper describes mental health related stigma expressed by police to police using a newly developed 11-item Police Officer Stigma Scale and reports on the preliminary psychometric properties (factor structure and internal reliability) of this scale.
Method: The scale used an indirect measurement approach adapted from the Perceived Devaluation and Discrimination Scale. Five themes appropriate to police culture were adapted and six additional items were added. Responses were rated on a 5-point agreement scale with an additional don't know option. Data were collected from officers attending a mandatory workshop (90.5% response).
Results: Exploratory factor analysis showed the scale to be unidimensional and internally reliable (Cronbach's alpha was 0.82). The most endorsed items pertained to avoiding disclosure to a supervisor/manager or to a colleague (85% agreement), that most officers would expect discrimination at work (62%), and that most officers would not want a supervisor or manager who had a mental illness (62%).
Conclusions: Findings highlight that (a) Police-to-police mental illness stigma may be a particularly strong feature of police cultures; (b) police should be a focus for targeted anti-stigma interventions; and
期刊介绍:
THE ISRAEL JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY publishes original articles dealing with the all bio-psycho-social aspects of psychiatry. While traditionally the journal has published manuscripts relating to mobility, relocation, acculturation, ethnicity, stress situations in war and peace, victimology and mental health in developing countries, papers addressing all aspects of the psychiatry including neuroscience, biological psychiatry, psychopharmacology, psychotherapy and ethics are welcome. The Editor also welcomes pertinent book reviews and correspondence. Preference is given to research reports of no more than 5,000 words not including abstract, text, references, tables and figures. There should be no more than 40 references and 4 tables or figures. Brief reports (1,500 words, 5 references) are considered if they have heuristic value. Books to be considered for review should be sent to the editorial office. Selected book reviews are invited by the editor.