The stigma of social workers towards mentally ill persons

Pavelić, Ana. (2009). The stigma of social workers towards mentally ill persons. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Jokić-Begić, Nataša].

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Abstract

In addition to the problems in functioning, imposed by the symptoms of their illnesses, persons suffering from mental illnesses also face the rejection by other people because of fear of their unpredictable reactions. The main objective of this research is to find the guidelines necessary for preparing the process of destigmatization of people with mental illnesses with the population of social workers that come into contact with mentally ill persons upon their hospitalisation. Knowledge, attitudes and social distance towards mentally ill persons were studied on the sample of 109 social workers. The results show that social workers demonstrate substantial knowledge about mentally ill persons, mildly negative attitudes and high acceptance of mentally ill persons when they belong to emotionally more distant categories (a neighbour or friend), and low acceptance when they belong to emotionally closer categories (teacher of my child, partner of my brother/sister, partner of my child, my partner). The predictor that proved to be statistically significant in explaining the variance of the attitude towards mentally ill persons is the knowledge about mentally ill persons. The participants with less knowledge will have more negative attitudes towards mentally ill persons. The predictors that proved to be statistically significant in explaining the variance of social distance towards mentally ill persons are knowledge about mentally ill persons and attitude toward mentally ill persons. The greater the knowledge of the participants about mentally ill persons and the more positive their attitude is, they demonstrate less social distance towards mentally ill persons.

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