The reporting of mental disorders research in British media

Abstract

BackgroundWhile the media may significantly influence public attitudes and government policies affecting the research agenda, how mental health research is reported in the media has been virtually unstudied. The aim of this study was to examine stories concerning mental health research published on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website between 1999 and 2008 and in New Scientist between 2008 and 2010.MethodStories were retrieved from on-line archives. Story content was coded and assessed against: ‘disease burden’ of mental disorders; the general corpus of research papers in mental health and the countries from which they originated; the journals in which cited papers were published; and funding sources.ResultsA total of 1015 BBC stories reporting mental health research and 133 New Scientist stories were found. The distribution of stories did not reflect ‘disease burden’; research on dementia was over-represented, while depression and alcohol were under-represented. There was an emphasis on biological research while stories on psychological interventions were rare. UK research was over-represented. Research funded by government and private non-profit sources was over-represented. Commentators from Alzheimer's Disease charities were prominent.ConclusionsConsideration of reported stories may suggest approaches to working with the media to improve the public understanding of, and support for, mental health research. The role of commentators may be especially important.

Measuring the Outcome of Biomedical Research: A Systematic Literature Review

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Changes in the perception of mental illness stigma in Germany over the last two decades

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An online intervention using information on the mental health-mental illness continuum to reduce stigma

“…Beyond anti-stigma work, our study suggests that generally, stressing the continuous nature of mental distress in public messages on psychiatric research and mental illness could be a way to reduce the stigma of mental illness. Media analyses of the portrayal of mental illness have so far focused on false stereotypes [27] or unbalanced etiological information [28], but not on continuity messages. Hence, it is unknown to what extent the continuous nature of mental health is mirrored in media coverage of mental health problems, but we assume that continuity messages are rare.…”