Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.
Crim Behav Ment Health. 2024 Feb;34(1):79-93. doi: 10.1002/cbm.2326. Epub 2024 Jan 11.
Individuals returning to the wider community from incarceration face many re-entry barriers, including stigmatising beliefs regarding past criminal record, that have impact on health and re-entry. Understanding the development and impact of self-stigma on health can inform re-entry and rehabilitation services.
The two aims of this study were first, to evaluate a previously established model of self-stigma applied to individuals who have experienced incarceration and, secondly, to study the impact of self-stigma on physical and mental health as well as community integration on re-entry.
This is a cross-sectional study of 129 formerly incarcerated adults recruited using an online platform and asked to complete online rating scales about self-stigmatisation, health and sense of community integration. Repeated-measures analysis of variance, correlation analysis, and path analyses were used to evaluate the model.
There was support for the four distinct stages of self-stigmatisation apparent in mental health research. There was a relationship between self-stigma harm and sense of community integration, mediated by mental but not physical health status scores.
Our findings add to work on self-stigmatisation in the field of mental health by showing that the concept appears relevant and appears in similar staging among formerly incarcerated individuals and that self-stigmatisation is likely to be important for their community reintegration. Our sample was not typical of the wider prison population for race and gender distribution, in particular having fewer than expected those minority groups likely to be especially vulnerable to stigmatisation by others. Our findings nevertheless suggest that further, preferably, longitudinal research on self-stigma to enable better understanding of pathways could substantially help treatment and rehabilitation of individuals after release from a correctional facility.
从监禁中返回更广泛社区的个人面临许多重新融入的障碍，包括对过去犯罪记录的污名化观念，这些观念对健康和重新融入社会产生影响。了解自我污名化对健康的发展和影响，可以为重新融入和康复服务提供信息。
本研究的两个目的是，首先评估适用于有监禁经历的个体的自我污名化的先前建立模型，其次研究自我污名化对重新融入时的身心健康和社区融合的影响。
这是一项横断面研究，共纳入 129 名曾被监禁的成年人，通过在线平台招募，并要求他们在线完成自我污名化、健康和社区融合感的评分量表。采用重复测量方差分析、相关分析和路径分析来评估模型。
有证据支持心理健康研究中自我污名化的四个明显阶段。自我污名化伤害与社区融合感之间存在关系，由心理健康状况评分介导，但与身体健康状况评分无关。
我们的研究结果通过表明自我污名化概念在以前被监禁的个体中似乎是相关的，并且以类似的阶段出现，并且自我污名化可能对他们的社区重新融入很重要，从而为心理健康领域的自我污名化研究增添了内容。我们的样本在种族和性别分布上与更广泛的监狱人口不同，特别是与其他可能特别容易受到他人污名化的少数群体相比，人数较少。然而，我们的研究结果表明，进一步的、最好是纵向的自我污名化研究，可以更好地了解途径，这将大大有助于从惩教机构获释后的个体的治疗和康复。
