Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Locked Bag 10, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Locked Bag 10, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
Soc Sci Med. 2011 Aug;73(4):498-506. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.015. Epub 2011 Jul 6.
Mental disorders are common in young people, yet many do not seek help. The use of psychiatric labels to describe mental disorders is associated with effective help-seeking choices, and is promoted in community awareness initiatives designed to improve help-seeking. However these labels may also be coupled with stigmatizing beliefs and therefore inhibit help-seeking: lay mental health or non-specific labels may be less harmful. We examined the association between labeling of mental disorders and stigma in youth using data from a national telephone survey of 2802 Australians aged 12-25 years conducted from June 2006 to August 2006. Label use and stigmatizing beliefs were assessed in response to vignettes of a young person experiencing depression, psychosis or social phobia. Logistic regressions examined the association between a range of labels commonly used, including psychiatric labels, and a range of stigma components. There were no significant associations between label use and the stigma components of "stigma perceived in others", "reluctance to disclose" and for the most part "social distance". Most mental health labels were associated with seeing the person as "sick" rather than "weak" and accurate psychiatric labels had the strongest effect sizes. However, for the psychosis vignette, the "dangerous/unpredictable" component was predicted by the labels "schizophrenia/psychosis", "mental illness" and "psychological problem", and the accurate psychiatric label showed the strongest association. For all vignettes, generic lay labels were not associated with stigma, but also rarely had a counter stigma effect. These findings suggest that the use of accurate psychiatric labels by young people is seldom associated with stigma and may assist young people by reducing perceptions of weakness. However, community education that promotes accurate labeling of psychosis should proceed with caution and address beliefs about dangerousness and unpredictability.
精神障碍在年轻人中很常见，但许多人并不寻求帮助。使用精神科标签来描述精神障碍与寻求有效帮助的选择有关，并在旨在提高寻求帮助的社区意识倡议中得到推广。然而，这些标签也可能与污名化的信念相关联，从而抑制寻求帮助：心理健康或非特定标签可能危害较小。我们使用 2006 年 6 月至 8 月期间对 2802 名年龄在 12-25 岁的澳大利亚人进行的全国电话调查的数据，研究了精神障碍标签与年轻人污名之间的关系。在针对经历抑郁、精神病或社交恐惧症的年轻人的案例研究中评估了标签使用和污名化信念。逻辑回归检验了一系列常见标签（包括精神科标签）与一系列污名化成分之间的关联。标签使用与“他人感知的污名”、“不愿透露”以及在大多数情况下“社会距离”等污名化成分之间没有显著关联。大多数心理健康标签与将人视为“病态”而非“脆弱”相关，而准确的精神科标签具有最强的效应大小。然而，对于精神病案例研究，“危险/不可预测”的成分由“精神分裂症/精神病”、“精神疾病”和“心理问题”等标签预测，准确的精神科标签显示出最强的关联。对于所有案例研究，通用的非专业标签与污名无关，但也很少有反污名效应。这些发现表明，年轻人使用准确的精神科标签很少与污名相关联，并且可能通过减少对脆弱性的认知来帮助年轻人。然而，推广准确标注精神病的社区教育应谨慎行事，并解决关于危险和不可预测性的信念。
