Stigma: Impacts and Strategies to Reduce

This article discusses the concept of stigma and its negative impacts on individuals with chronic diseases. It explores the social and behavioral effects of stigma and provides strategies that nurses can use to reduce its effects. The importance of education, intervention, counseling, and information dissemination is highlighted. References are provided for further reading.

Running head: Stigma 1
Stigma
Name
Institution

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Stigma
Stigma is the shame attached to a condition or disorder which is considered socially
unacceptable by the society. It is a perceived negative attribute which causes an individual to
think less of another (Falvo, & Holland, 2017). Basically, stigma is a negative mindset which
leads to devaluation of another person. In most cases, the stigmatized people are marked out to
be different and are usually being blamed for the difference. Stigmatizing people with chronic
diseases means having fixed ideas and judgements
Impacts of stigma on chronic diseases
People who experience stigma are discriminated and marginalized and thereby becoming
more vulnerable. Stigmatized people may experience exclusion from the rest of the society hence
limiting their abilities. People with chronic diseases often identify stigma as a barrier to their
health and well-being. The social impacts on these people include reducing self-esteem and
dignity, damaging their social relationships and interactions. This may lead to a feeling of
embarrassment and fear (Hatzenbuehler, Phelan, & Link, 2013). Stigma also affects the
behaviors of people suffering from chronic diseases. In most cases, the stigmatized people are
bullied or even isolated which makes them shy away from asking for assistance
(HassanpourDehkordi, Mohammadi, & NikbakhatNasrabadi, 2016). The stigmatized people
often lack confidence and may never seek medical help until their conditions worsens. Others
may in turn disengage from the therapeutic interventions or even stop taking medications thereby
hindering their recovery. Additionally, stigma affects the cognitive thinking of the people
suffering from mental illness. Stigma can result into suicidal thoughts, delusions, hallucinations,

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depression or even hurt. It is important to note that these stigmas are also barriers to quality of
life to the people suffering from chronic diseases.
strategies nurses can use to reduce the effect of stigma in people with chronic illness
Stigmatization can worsen the health problems of the people suffering from chronic
illnesses. Defining an individual because of their illnesses is discrimination. Nurses are therefore
tasked with helping reduce the effects of stigmatization so as to ensure patient outcome. The
first strategy that nurses can use is offer education to the affected people. Education will help
reduce the impacts by increasing the knowledge and understanding of the diseases thereby
making the affected people accept their conditions. Education will also assist the affected people
to be able to differentiate between the facts and myths surrounding their illnesses. Another
strategy that nurses can use is offering intervention that can give the affected people hope, for
instance psychological counselling. According to Taghva (2017), counselling will enable the
nurses determine the level of the impact and come up with the best possible interventions.
Counselling will also help the nurses identify the adverse effects of the people with chronic
illnesses’ well-being and ability to function as normal members of the society hence making the
patients amplify the vision of their health condition as well as discover the proper potential of
dealing with stigma so as to improve their quality of life. Additionally, the nurses can take the
initiative of using information dissemination tools like the internet to spread the anti-
stigmatization programs (Taghva et al., 2017). According to McCorkle et al. (2011), nurses can
empower the patients on the importance of self-management by offering personalized
interventions to the people affected so that they may have hope and feel cared for. This will help
reduce their negative cognitive thoughts as they will focus more on positivity.

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References
Falvo, D., & Holland, B. E. (2017). Medical and psychosocial aspects of chronic illness and
disability. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
HassanpourDehkordi, A., Mohammadi, N., & NikbakhatNasrabadi, A. (2016). Hepatitis-related
stigma in chronic patients: A qualitative study. Applied Nursing Research, 29, 206-210.
Hatzenbuehler, M. L., Phelan, J. C., & Link, B. G. (2013). Stigma as a fundamental cause of
population health inequalities. American journal of public health, 103(5), 813-821.
McCorkle, R., Ercolano, E., Lazenby, M., Schulman‐Green, D., Schilling, L. S., Lorig, K., &
Wagner, E. H. (2011). Self‐management: Enabling and empowering patients living with
cancer as a chronic illness. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 61(1), 50-62.
Taghva, A., Farsi, Z., Javanmard, Y., Atashi, A., Hajebi, A., & Noorbala, A. A. (2017).
Strategies to reduce the stigma toward people with mental disorders in Iran: stakeholders’
perspectives. BMC psychiatry, 17(1), 17.
Taghva, A. (2017). Strategies to reduce the stigma toward people with mental disorders in Iran
based on stakeholders view: A qualitative study. European Psychiatry, 41, S519.