Evaluating the effectiveness of a consumer delivered anti-stigma program: Replication with graduate-level helping professionals.

Abstract

The results further support the effectiveness of IOOV and indicate that graduate level helping professionals can benefit from anti-stigma programs. Future research should go beyond self-report knowledge and attitude evaluation, test the efficacy of the components of the IOOV program (video, contact with presenters), and test the lasting effects of the program.

Feasibility, acceptability, and initial efficacy of a knowledge-contact program to reduce mental illness stigma and improve mental health literacy in adolescents

“…Specifically, the r-AQ items ask participants to respond a scenario regarding a student with “mental illness.” In short, participants may have operationalized the term “mental illness” differently, and may have thought about individuals with severe psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia rather than individuals with less severe illnesses (Link et al, 1999). Mean baseline scores on mental health literacy for our study were slightly lower than those reported by Wood & Wahl (2006) and Pittman, Noh, & Coleman (2010). Measures of mental illness stigma cannot be compared across these studies because of differences in instruments.…”

“…Plausible differences in study findings between our study and others (Wood et al, 2006; Pittman et al, 2010) could be related to level of mental health knowledge, education level, type of education (students derived from psychopathology and psychology courses), socio-demographics, developmental stage, differences in the intervention administration and intervention content, reactivity to the experimental situation, and experimenter demand (Shaddish et al, 2002). Previous studies of In Our Own Voice have paid little attention to intervention fidelity and have utilized an immediate pre-and post-test design.…”

“…Our participants were younger and had less education than participants in other studies (Pittman et al, 2010; Rusch et al, 2008; Wood et al, 2006). It is possible that differences in study findings regarding stigma are related to the conceptualization of mental illness by participants.…”

“…Prior work by Pittman, Noh, & Coleman (2010), Wood & Wahl (2006), and Rusch, Kanter, Angelone, & Ridley (2008), all among older adolescents (college age students) and young adults (graduate students), provide initial evidence for the efficacy for a knowledge-contact intervention called, In Our Own Voice. In Our Own Voice is administered by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and has theoretical underpinnings from Fischer’s narrative paradigm theory (Fischer, 1987) (Pinto-Foltz & Logsdon, 2009b).…”

“…The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibly, acceptability, and initial efficacy of In Our Own Voice among female adolescents. Given the prior use of In Our Own Voice and initial evidence in college age students (Pittman et al, 2010; Rusch et al, 2008; Wood et al2006;), we hypothesized that In Our Own Voice would be highly feasible and acceptable to adolescents. We hypothesized that adolescent participants who received In Our Own Voice would have less mental illness stigma and higher mental health literacy immediately (T2, one week after the intervention) and intermediately (T3 and T4, 4 and 8 weeks after the intervention) when compared to adolescent participants who did not receive the intervention.…”