Stigma In Mental Health Care

According to the United States Surgeon reports, stigma is one of the main barriers to mental health care (Bharadwaj et al., 2015). It has also been noted that it is one of the many reasons why people make the choice to not get the necessary treatment they need is because they feel the stigma associated to the mental illness (Corrigan et al., 2004). A lot of prior research has indicated the growing concern that stigma is an obstacle between appropriate care and letting the symptoms get worst when help seeking doesn’t occur (Roeloffs et al., 2003). The present study wants to continue the question of whether or not we can change this barrier, especially for those with possible low levels of depression. Research has found that stigma affects early
The study evaluated stigma using Link’s stigma scale that will be used in this study as well. The researchers looked at patients who identified as having probable current depressive disorder who came from six manage care organizations. Researchers assessed utilization measures (different kind of mental health, primary care, medical visits) six months after the baseline evaluation (Roeloffs et al., 2003). The Roeloffs and colleagues study demonstrated that stigma was widespread among depressed patients and showed that stigma concerning friendships related to reported unmet needs from actual service (2003). For the purposes of the study, stigma—with the focus on mental health—will be those who feel shame, felt discrimination, guilt, and fear when it comes to seeking help behavior. Lehman (as cited in Link, Struening, Rahay et. al.) demonstrated through a cross sectional design that stigma and interventions for those with mental illness showed an inverse relationship indicating that sigma displayed a negative effect on different aspects of a person’s quality of life. This sort of “dual and opposite process of stigma and treatment” thus challenges seeking treatment, but also sustaining treatment and its effectiveness with stigma playing a role (Link et al.,
This behavior is typically associated from stigma, specifically when there is misreporting’s on mental health and in a discriminatory social context (Bharadwaj et al., 2015). This hiding behavior can also be addressed as avoidance of the label of being mental ill that has shown significant harm to those who feel they are being stigmatized (Corrigan, 2004). A study by the National Annenberg Risk Survey of Youth discussed in Corrigan’s paper showed that adolescents who endorsed having stigma were less likely to obtain care when it was needed