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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Effectiveness of an intervention for reducing social stigma towards mental illness in adolescents
Regina Vila-Badia, Francisco Martínez-Zambrano, Otilia Arenas, Emma Casas-Anguera, Esther García-Morales, Raúl Villellas, José Ramón Martín, María Belén Pérez-Franco, Tamara Valduciel, Diana Casellas, Mar García-Franco, Jose Miguel, Joaquim Balsera, Gemma Pascual, Eugènia Julia, Susana Ochoa
Regina Vila-Badia, Francisco Martínez-Zambrano, Otilia Arenas, Emma Casas-Anguera, Esther García-Morales, Raúl Villellas, José Ramón Martín, María Belén Pérez-Franco, Tamara Valduciel, Diana Casellas, Mar García-Franco, Jose Miguel, Joaquim Balsera, Gemma Pascual, Eugènia Julia, Susana Ochoa, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, CIBERSAM, 08830 Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
Author contributions: All the authors have participated in the final version of the manuscript and have approved it; Vila-Badia R, Martínez-Zambrano F and Ochoa S designed the study and performed the statistical analysis; all the authors participated in the interventions in the schools.
Supported by The PI011/1347, of the Plan Nacional de I+D+I; co-funded by ISCIII - Subdirección General de Evaluación y Formento de la Investigación Sanitaria; Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER); and Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu and Escola Amiga Program.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Comitè de Recerca of Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu and Comitè de Ètica de Sant Joan de Déu.
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Regina Vila-Badia, Psicòloga - Investigadora, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, CIBERSAM, C/Dr. Antoni Pujades, 42, 08830 Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain. r.vila@pssjd.org
Telephone: +34-93-6406350-12347 Fax: +34-93-6305319
Received: February 25, 2016
Peer-review started: February 27, 2016
First decision: April 15, 2016
Revised: May 4, 2016
Accepted: May 31, 2016
Article in press: June 2, 2016
Published online: June 22, 2016
AIM: To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention for reducing social stigma towards mental illness in adolescents. The effect of gender and knowledge of someone with mental illness was measured.
METHODS: Two hundred and eighty secondary school students were evaluated using the Community Attitudes towards Mental Illness (CAMI) questionnaire. The schools were randomized and some received the intervention and others acted as the control group. The programme consisted of providing information via a documentary film and of contact with healthcare staff in order to reduce the social stigma within the school environment.
RESULTS: The intervention was effective in reducing the CAMI authoritarianism and social restrictiveness subscales. The intervention showed significant changes in girls in terms of authoritarianism and social restrictiveness, while boys only showed significant changes in authoritarianism. Following the intervention, a significant reduction was found in authoritarianism and social restrictiveness in those who knew someone with mental illness, and only in authoritarianism in those who did not know anyone with mental illness.
CONCLUSION: The intervention was effective to reduce social stigma towards people with mental illness, especially in the area of authoritarianism. Some differences were found depending on gender and whether or not the subjects knew someone with mental illness.
Core tip: The intervention was effective to reduce social stigma towards people with mental illness in schools. Authoritarianism was the area that improves more after the intervention. Women and people with knowledge of someone with mental illness were the collective were the intervention was more effective.
