Dai Ying-Xiu, Chen Mu-Hong, Chen Tzeng-Ji
1 Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei City, Taiwan, R.O.C.
2 Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei City, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2016 Nov;62(7):601-607. doi: 10.1177/0020764016660994. Epub 2016 Jul 28.
Relabeling has been proposed as a strategy to reduce the stigma associated with mental illnesses. Previous studies have shown that changing the names of psychiatry clinics has led to reduced feelings of being stigmatized among patients. In Taiwan, terms other than 'psychiatry' (in Chinese, jīng shén kē) are more commonly used in the names of psychiatry clinics. The term 'psychosomatic clinics' is widely used instead.
This study investigated the characteristics of psychiatry clinic names in order to better understand the role of clinic names in primary care settings.
Relevant data were extracted from an open database maintained by the government of Taiwan. These data included the names of community psychiatry clinics and hospital-based psychiatry clinics, population size and the degree of urbanization in the area served by each clinic.
At the time of this study, there were 254 community psychiatry clinics and 190 hospital-based psychiatry clinics in Taiwan. Only 18.9% of the community clinic names included the term 'psychiatry'. Additionally, 14.6% of community clinic names and 28.4% of hospital-based clinic names included the term 'psychosomatics'. The regions in which clinics without 'psychiatry' in their names were located had significantly larger populations and higher levels of urbanization than the regions in which clinics with 'psychiatry' in their names were located.
A low prevalence of the term 'psychiatry' in community psychiatry clinic names was found in Taiwan. The stigma associated with psychiatry and other socio-cultural factors are hypothesized to explain this phenomenon.
重新命名已被提议作为一种减少与精神疾病相关污名的策略。先前的研究表明，更改精神病诊所的名称可减少患者的被污名化感。在台湾，精神病诊所的名称中更常用“精神科”（中文）以外的术语。“身心科诊所”这一术语被广泛使用。
本研究调查了精神病诊所名称的特征，以便更好地理解诊所名称在初级保健环境中的作用。
从台湾政府维护的一个开放数据库中提取相关数据。这些数据包括社区精神病诊所和医院精神病诊所的名称、各诊所服务地区的人口规模和城市化程度。
在本研究开展时，台湾有254家社区精神病诊所和190家医院精神病诊所。只有18.9%的社区诊所名称包含“精神科”一词。此外，14.6%的社区诊所名称和28.4%的医院诊所名称包含“身心科”一词。名称中没有“精神科”的诊所所在地区的人口规模显著大于名称中有“精神科”的诊所所在地区，且城市化水平更高。
在台湾，社区精神病诊所名称中“精神科”一词的出现频率较低。与精神科相关的污名及其他社会文化因素被假定为可解释这一现象。
