Analysis of the possible components of stigmatised attitudes towards depression and heroin dependence

AbstractAims and methods: Stigmatised attitudes towards people with mental illness are widespread. Researchers have suggested various attributes that may contribute to this. The project aimed to identify how some of these might contribute to stigmatised attitudes towards people with depression, schizophrenia and heroin addiction. Five short self-completion questionnaires were devised to measure public perception of mentally ill people regarding contagion, blameworthiness, dangerousness, treatability, and immorality. These were each posted to 150 participants selected at random from a representative panel of 400 members of the UK general public.Results: About 106 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate 70%). Of the five components, dangerousness was the principle predictor of stigmatised attitudes towards heroin addiction, depression and schizophrenia – contributing almost half of the stigma-scale variance in the case of schizophrenia. Few other components contributed more than 15% of the sti...