Stigmatization by Nurses towards Mentally Ill People

Abstract

Background:People with mental illness face two major problems at the same time. The first is the disease itself which they must learn to live with and to manage all its symptoms. The second, often more serious problem, is the presence of stereotypes and prejudices which are the result of insufficient knowledge about mental illnesses and their misunderstanding. The aim was to explore the current state of stigmatization by nurses towards mentally ill people. Methods: In this quantitative exploratory research we used an existing questionnaire (the Opening Minds Scale for Health Care Providers) with randomly selected nurses who treat mentally ill patients. Results:A significant difference in the degree of stigmatization with respect to the age of the nurses was not found. However,in terms of the overall assessment, specifically in the domain of attitudes, the rate of stigmatization was higher among younger respondents. Nurses with shorter professional experience proved a lower degree of stigmatization than nurses with longer professional experience. Conclusion: It is expected that the rate of mental illnesses will increase. Therefore, we recommend continuing to pay increased attention to destigmatization within the education of and developing more destigmatizing initiatives among nurses.