o5: stigma in psychiatric disorders

social stigma is a major challenge among the patients with mental illness, their families and the health care providers. not only the patient with psychological disorders, but also who has an infectious disease suffer social stigma. stigma refers to an extreme and unusual disapproval of a person from the other members of society. stigma is a greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin of criminals, slaves, or traitors in order to visibly identify them as blemished or morally polluted persons. due to the stigma and its negative effect on the patient and his family, the treatment of the patients is also challenging. although stigma arises from the other’s belief, but the worst part is the patient’s bad feeling about himself. most of the patients and their families avoid visiting a psychiatrist cause them to lose the golden time of the treatment, make their illness chronic which end to disability. lack of knowledge about the mental illnesses has been always the most important origin of stigma. up to the 19th century, psychosis has been the only well-known type mental illness and there was no concept about the other psychological disorders such as spasm, depression and obsessive compulsive disorders which are usually concomitant with physical manifestations. today, although the psychosis is a small portion of the mental illnesses, but it forms the major viewpoint of the people about psychological disorders. despite of modern treatment methods applied to even cure the mental illnesses, the people hate to be called “mentally ill”. today we recognized that mental disorders are a brain disorder, and we refuted the ideas that psychosis is a curse from the gods and that people with epilepsy held prophetic powers. although mental disorders are very similar to the physical disorders in term of pathophysiology, etiology, treatment and prevention, but it is yet hard to accept them. health system have a long way to overcome the big challenge of recognition, prevention and treatment of mental disorders and to instruct the people about the nature of these disorders which lead to a significant improvement in the health care system.