Open AccessStigmatization by Nurses towards Mentally Ill People
Author(s) -
T. Fertalova,
I. Ondriova,
L. Hadasova
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
clinical social work journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2222-386X
pISSN - 2076-9741
DOI - 10.22359/cswhi_13_1_09
Subject(s) - mentally ill , psychology , mental illness , mental health , exploratory research , psychiatry , scale (ratio) , mental state , nursing , clinical psychology , medicine , physics , quantum mechanics , sociology , anthropology
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.