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Portrayal of depression and other mental illnesses in Australian nonfiction media
Author(s) -
Francis Catherine,
Pirkis Jane,
Blood R. Warwick,
Dunt David,
Burgess Philip,
Morley Belinda,
Stewart Andrew
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.20050
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , psychiatry , psychology , mental health , clinical psychology , medicine , economics , macroeconomics
This study describes Australian media portrayal of mental illnesses, focusing on depression. A random sample of 1,123 items was selected for analysis from a pool of 13,389 nonfictional media items about mental illness collected between March 2000 and February 2001. Depression was portrayed more frequently than other mental illnesses. Items about depression, eating disorders, and substance use disorders most commonly described policies or programs, whereas items about schizophrenia most frequently portrayed individuals or symptoms and treatment. A minority of items about depression presented information about symptoms, causes, treatment, or prognosis. Although such information was generally accurate, a proportion of items conveyed misleading messages. There is therefore scope for increasing the level of accurate information provided about depression in the Australian media. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 33: 283–297, 2005.