BACKGROUND considerable proportion of the population experiences major life disruptions after losing a loved one to suicide. Social stigma attached to suicide survivors adds to complications occurring in the course of suicide bereavement. Despite its known risks, stigma related to suicide survivors has been sparsely investigated. METHODS We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed, ...

BACKGROUND The Mental Health First Aid training course was favorably evaluated in an uncontrolled trial in 2002 showing improvements in participants' mental health literacy, including knowledge, stigmatizing attitudes, confidence and help provided to others. This article reports the first randomized controlled trial of this course. METHODS Data are reported on 301 participants randomized to e...

Offering counseling and psychotherapy to patients with pedophilia is considered an essential part of sexual abuse prevention by many experts in the field. Yet, professionals' willingness to offer treatment might be compromised by stigmatizing attitudes towards these patients. In the present study, we developed and tested a 10-min online intervention (including educational material and a video a...

BACKGROUND The current study aims to investigate how the ability to accurately gauge risk factors associated with contracting HIV while taking into consideration various individual and community level socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., race and poverty) predicts the nature of stigmatizing attitudes toward persons with HIV. METHODS Data from a sample of 1,347 Cape Town area youth who par...

OBJECTIVE Crisis intervention team (CIT) training provides police officers with knowledge and skills to improve their responses to individuals with mental illnesses. This study determined changes in knowledge, attitudes, and social distance related to schizophrenia among police officers after CIT training. METHODS A survey was administered to 159 officers immediately before and after a 40-hou...

The stigma associated with mental illness can lead to a range of negative outcomes, including delaying or avoiding help seeking. Identifying the characteristics of people who are more likely to hold stigmatizing attitudes enables the development of targeted stigma reduction programs. However, no previous research has systematically examined the predictors of anxiety stigma. This study used the ...

Medical students are future doctors who are trained to treat all kinds of diseases including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) without prejudice. Teaching basic scientifi c knowledge and technical skills is no longer adequate for today’s medical students. There is also a need for them to be provided with high personal and professional values. This study examined stigmatizing attitude towards ...

BACKGROUND Students have stereotyped views about people with mental illness. In particular, they believe that these persons are incurable, dangerous, unpredictable and responsible for their condition. This study aims to investigate the levels of public stigma in an Italian university population. METHODS The Attribution Questionnaire 27 - Italian Version (AQ-27-I) was administered to a sample ...

BACKGROUND Despite its importance in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, HIV/AIDS Counseling and Testing (HCT) is low in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease continues to be a serious public health problem. This has in part been attributed to HIV/AIDS related stigma. OBJECTIVE To assess the level of HIV/AIDS related stigma and its impact on uptake of HCT in a high HIV prevalence population in...