Berlin F S, Malin H M
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205.
Am J Psychiatry. 1991 Nov;148(11):1572-6. doi: 10.1176/ajp.148.11.1572.
The public's perception about the success or failure of psychiatric rehabilitation is frequently dependent upon information received through the news media. The primary objective of this report is to present an example of how the news media can distort public perceptions of treatment outcome.
Verbatim quotations were presented from a television news series that alleged criminal recidivism by nine patients purportedly treated for various paraphilias at a large, community-based sexual disorders clinic. Brief case vignettes about each of the nine were then reviewed. This allowed for comparisons between what the media had alleged and what had actually occurred.
Two of the nine cases were relatively minor instances of recidivism involving no genital contact, although the media presentation had either failed to report this or had suggested otherwise. A third case of alleged recidivism involved a patient who was evaluated but never actually treated by the clinic in the community. A fourth patient had refused recommended clinic treatment upon prison release, and a fifth patient had been discharged from treatment at the clinic because of noncompliance years before recidivating. Other cases presented contained additional misleading information. None of the nine cases was reported by the media in the context of a balanced approach that included treatment successes. Clinic staff were constrained from responding publicly to correct certain misinformation because of patient-psychiatrist privilege.
Inaccurate media presentations about psychiatric rehabilitation that ignore treatment successes and focus only on alleged failures do a disservice to patients, mental health workers, and society at large.
公众对精神康复成败的认知往往取决于通过新闻媒体获得的信息。本报告的主要目的是举例说明新闻媒体如何扭曲公众对治疗结果的认知。
引用了一档电视新闻系列节目的逐字记录，该节目称，在一家大型社区性障碍诊所接受各种恋物癖治疗的9名患者再次犯罪。随后回顾了这9名患者每人的简要病例。这使得能够对媒体所宣称的内容与实际发生的情况进行比较。
9个案例中有2个是相对轻微的再次犯罪案例，不涉及生殖器接触，尽管媒体报道要么未提及这一点，要么暗示情况并非如此。第三个所谓的再次犯罪案例涉及一名患者，该患者接受了评估，但实际上从未在社区诊所接受治疗。第四名患者在出狱后拒绝了诊所推荐的治疗，第五名患者在再次犯罪前几年因不遵守规定而被诊所停止治疗。其他案例还包含更多误导性信息。媒体在报道这9个案例时，均未采用兼顾治疗成功案例的平衡方式。由于患者与精神科医生之间的保密特权，诊所工作人员无法公开回应以纠正某些错误信息。
媒体对精神康复的不准确报道忽略治疗成功案例，仅关注所谓的失败案例，这对患者、心理健康工作者以及整个社会都是有害的。
