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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 10 page paper discusses the stigma that attaches to those who are diagnosed with mental illness, and what can be done to reduce the stigma. Bibliography lists 12 sources.
Page Count:
10 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVStigma.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
some people are understanding, many more tend to "stigmatize" the sufferer, pasting ill-conceived labels on them, labels likely to have been derived from movies, television, and a cursory knowledge of
psychiatry garnered from some long-forgotten required undergraduate course. This paper examines the problem of stigmatizing the mentally ill, both from their viewpoint and from the perspective of those who
care for them; it also considers a plan to help reduce stigma. Stigma from the View of the Mentally Ill In order to find out how psychiatric patients
view the impact of the diagnosis on their lives, researchers designed a questionnaire to "elicit the patients opinions on different forms of social discrimination and rejection" (Lai, 2000, p. 111).
The questions fell into several different groups (designing questions for research studies is a science in itself since they have to be worded to avoid bias); the groups dealt
with the effects of stigmatization on aspects of the patients lives; the portrayal of mental illness in the mass media; and whether the patients thought "increased public awareness of mental
health would be helpful" (Lai, 2000, p. 111). The study comprised 300 mental patients (either outpatients or day patients) with a control group of 50 cardiac patients (Lai, 2000).
The control group was give a similar questionnaire, except that the words "mental illness" were replaced by "heart disease" (Lai, 2000, p. 111). The results are what we
might expect. The two largest groups of patients who responded to the questionnaire were those who suffered from schizophrenia and those who suffered from depression (Lai, 2000). Among those
with schizophrenia "the negative impact of stigma most often cited was difficulty in finding a job (73%) (Lai, 2000, p. 111). This might be a fruitful area for further
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