Stigma towards Child and Adolescent Mental Health Problems among Fathers and Mothers. A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

The stigma towards mental health problems (MHP) refers to the prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination that exist in society towards people with those problems (Corrigan & Watson, 2002). In recent years, research on social stigma has increased notably, revealing that beliefs of dangerousness, unpredictability, and guilt are common, as well as a general lack of knowledge about MHP (Huang et al., 2019;Li & Reavley, 2020). In addition, stigma may also be a barrier to secondary prevention in obtaining specialized psychological or psychiatric care, preventing access at institutional, community, and individual levels (Henderson et al., 2013), which results in delays in seeking PH interrupted treatment and generally poorer quality of care (Knaak et al., 2017).In children and adolescents, the prevalence of MHP ranges between 17% and 26% (Amerian Psychiatric Association [APA, 2013]), being necessary to highlight the enormous psychological impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the young population (Panchal et al., 2021), as well as recording alarming increases in suicide rates (Mayne et al., 2021). In this population, stigma also has negative effects, finding that children and adolescents often feel rejected, have feelings of shame