An Incipient Fuzzy Logic-Based Analysis of the Medical Specialty Influence on the Perception About Mental Patients

Analyses of the stigma associated with mental patients have been exhaustively developed. Some of these analyses refer to the general population in different countries, some others compare conclusions from these countries, and some others discuss the attitutes of either current or future (psychiatric and non-psychiatric) health professionals with respect to mental illness. Most of the studies are based on well-known questionnaires (usually on their country-adapted versions), each of them corresponding to a multi-item scale evaluated using either a 5-, 6- or 7-point Likert scale and focussing on different attitudinal factors or constructs. This paper introduces a quite preliminary study in this setting, aiming to examine the influence of the medical specialty on the perception about mental patients and involving a more expressive and flexible scale to rate attitudes: the fuzzy rating scale (allowing a free fuzzy set-valued response assessment to items).