Stigma toward people with severe mental disorder in university students before and after their practicum program in mental health.

Abstract

University education affects the attitudes of future professionals toward people with mental illness. To evaluate and compare stigmatizing attitudes of university students from nursing, psychology, and occupational therapy careers toward people with severe mental disorder (SMD), a multisite, nonrandomized, pre-post-test design was used with evaluations before and after a practicum program in mental health. Evaluation was done on a convenience sample of 520 students. The Mental Illness Clinicians' Attitudes (MIws1CA-4) scale was used to assess attitudes and a mixed linear model was used to compare the pre-and post-test data. Our results show that the practicum was slightly effective at reducing negative attitudes toward people with mental illness. Students' attitudes changed significantly after the training when considering career and country, although the changes were small. Nursing and psychology, but not

Public stigma profile toward mental disorders across different university degrees in the University of Valencia (Spain)

“…In Spain, studies with university students have shown that medical and nursing students had more negative attitudes than psychology and occupational therapy students in several stigmarelated themes: recovery, dangerousness, uncomfortability, disclosure, and discriminatory behavior (27). In another study evaluating the effect of internships in the last courses in the degrees of nursing, psychology and occupational therapy, results showed that although the effect was significant in the reduction of stigma toward people diagnosed with severe mental disorder in the degrees of nursing and psychology, it was small (28). Spanish teaching students have also participated in stigma studies.…”

Mental health stigma in Spanish university students

“…When comparing the stigma present in psychology students with students from other faculties, it has been found that the latter had a more negative perception of people with mental health problems, reacted worse emotionally to them and showed more avoidance behaviours (Bannatyne & Stapleton, 2017;Ruíz et al, 2022;Saavedra & Murvatian, 2021). Studies that have compared students who begin their psychology studies with students who have advanced in their degree and, therefore, have taken subjects related to the clinical or practical part, have obtained that there are either no differences in the level of stigma, remaining at a mild or moderate level (Fresán et al, 2012) or it decreases when acquiring knowledge, but still persists to a significant degree (Economou et al, 2017;Grandón et al, 2022).…”