“attitudes of the Spanish Police Towards Patients With Schizophrenia or Depressive Disorders”

Abstract

Background: Police officers have become an important part of psychiatric patients´ care; however, few studies have assessed the Police´s attitudes toward these patients. Our aim is to analyze the effect of the stigma associated with different mental illnesses on police officers.Methods: the attitudes of 927 officers of the Spanish National Police Force towards a person with schizophrenia or depressive disorder in the role of person in need of assistance, victim, witness, or suspect, were assessed by means of the Attribution Questionnaire adapted to the police context. Different socio-demographic variables were also collected. Results: Police officers expressed more willingness to help, felt more pity and considered psychiatric patients to be less responsible for their situation than people who were not described as being mentally ill. They also showed increased feelings of anger and avoidance, greater danger perception and need for segregation and coercion for medical treatment, especially in schizophrenia. Being a woman, the elderly and having more working experience, are associated with less stigmatizing attitudes among officers. Conclusions: Police officers have certain attitudes about mental illness particularly schizophrenia, that require special attention, as they may disrupt police action. We found several factors associated with the persistence of these stigmatizing attitudes in the Police that can guide us to implement training programs to promote attitude changing especially at the beginning of the professional career.