Perceived Stigma among Recipients of Mental Health Care in the General Canadian Population

Abstract

Objectives: The Mental Health Experiences Scale is a measure of perceived stigma, the perception of negative attitudes and behaviours by people with mental disorders. A recent Canadian survey (Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health) included this scale, providing an opportunity to describe perceived stigma in relation to diagnosis for the first time in the Canadian general population.

Methods: The survey interview began with an assessment of whether respondents had utilised services for an "emotional or mental health problem" in the preceding 12 months. The subset reporting service utilisation were asked whether others "held negative opinions" about them or "treated them unfairly" for reasons related to their mental health. The analysis reported here used frequencies, means, cross-tabulation, and logistic regression, all incorporating recommended replicate sampling weights and bootstrap variance estimation procedures.

Results: Stigma was perceived by 24.4% of respondents accessing mental health services. The frequency was higher among younger respondents (<55 years), those who were not working, those reporting only fair or poor mental health, and the subset who reported having received a diagnosis of a mental disorder. Sex and education level were not associated with perceived stigma. People with schizophrenia reported stigmatization only slightly more frequently than those with mood and anxiety disorders.

Conclusions: Stigmatization is a common, but not universal, experience among Canadians using services for mental health reasons. Stigmatization was a problem for a sizeable minority of respondents with mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders as well as bipolar and psychotic disorders.

Keywords: cross-sectional study; discrimination; epidemiologic study; mental disorders; mental health; perceived stigma; population study; stigmatization.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

© The Author(s) 2016.

Figures

Figure 1.

Mean Stigma Impact Scale ratings (95% confidence intervals) in the overall sample, and in those with self-reported schizophrenia or other psychotic disorder. The number with schizophrenia is 410, which is rounded due to Statistics Canada data release guidelines.

Figure 2.

Frequency of perceived stigmatization with 95% confidence intervals, by Composite International Diagnostic Interview diagnostic category.

Figure 3.

Frequency of perceived stigmatization with 95% confidence intervals, by Composite International Diagnostic Interview diagnostic category.