Reported and Intended Behaviour Towards Those With Mental Health Problems in the Czech Republic and England

Abstract

This is one of the first studies, which compares the level of stigmatizing behaviour in countries that used to be on the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. The aim was to identify the prevalence of reported and intended stigmatizing behaviour towards those with mental health problems in the Czech Republic and to compare these findings with the findings from England. The 8-item Reported and Intended Behaviour Scale (RIBS) was used to assess stigmatising behaviour among a representative sample of the Czech population (n=1797). Results were compared with the findings of an analogous survey from England (n=1720), which also used the RIBS. The extent of reported behaviour (i.e., past and present experiences with those with mental health problems) was lower in the Czech Republic than in England. While 12.7% of Czechs reported that they lived, 12.9% that they worked, and 15.3% that they were acquainted with someone who had mental health problems, the respective numbers for England were 18.5%, 26.3% and 32.5% (P<0.001 in each of these items). On the other hand, the extent of intended stigmatizing behaviour towards those with mental health problems is considerably higher in the Czech Republic. Out of maximum 20 points attached to possible responses to the RIBS items 5-8, Czechs had a lower total score (x=11.0, SD=4.0) compared to English respondents (x=16.1, SD=3.6), indicating lower willingness to accept a person with mental health problems (P<0.001). The prevalence of stigmatizing behaviour in the Czech Republic is worrying. Both, further research and evidence based anti-stigma interventions, should be pursued in order to better understand and decrease stigmatizing behaviour in the Czech Republic and possibly across the post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Attitudes towards the people with mental illness: comparison between Czech medical doctors and general population

“…Similar results were found by Högberg et al [39], who found people between 31 and 50 years to be less stigmatizing. In other studies, however, stigmatizing attitudes were found to be increasing with age [41,43] or having no significant influence [8,38,40]. Although in the present study female gender and the age category 35-54 were both found to be significantly associated with less stigmatizing attitudes, the practical meaning of this association is questionable as the total effect size in this regard was rather small.…”

“…Similarly, the ongoing Czech mental health care reform placed stigma high on its agenda [5]. However, stigmatizing attitudes continue to be prevalent world-wide [6,7], despite substantial differences in the level of stigma between individual countries [8].…”

Experience of stigma and discrimination in families of persons with schizophrenia in the Czech Republic

“…At the local community level, respondents mentioned lack of understanding and fear of PLs and resulting condemnation and aggressive behavior, which lead to FMs avoiding disclosure of diagnosis. As another recent study documented, 30.8% of the Czech general population are unwilling to have a person with mental illness as a neighbor and 26.4% are unwilling to have one as a friend (Winkler et al, 2015). Evidence of ignorance, misconceptions and endorsement of prejudices was also apparent at the family level, such as beliefs about "infectiousness" of schizophrenia, which reflects a particular example of family beliefs about contagiousness of mental illness (Larson & Corrigan, 2008).…”

Impact of the mass media OBERTAMENT campaign on the levels of stigma among the population of Catalonia, Spain

“…Furthermore, most of this literature on anti-stigma campaigns is coming from Anglo-Saxon countries [16]; and little is known about the effectiveness of these strategies in other countries, which have different cultural values and prevalence of mental disorders [17][18][19].…”