Mental Health Stigma: Exploring Effects, Interventions, and Impacts

This essay delves into the multifaceted issue of mental health stigma, examining its definition, various forms, and potential effects on individuals, families, and the broader community. It explores the impact of stigma on relationships, employment, education, and legal and policy frameworks. The essay differentiates between self-stigma and social stigma, highlighting factors like culture, prejudice, and discrimination that contribute to its development. Furthermore, it discusses the consequences of mental health stigma, including increased mental health disorders, delayed care, and disrupted social connections. The essay also addresses the effects on legal parameters and available services. Finally, it proposes interventions such as community assessment, counseling, and staff training to mitigate the negative effects of mental health stigma. The references provided support the arguments and provide a foundation for further research into the topic.

Mental Health Stigma
and its effects

Mental Health Stigma and its effects
Abstract
There are certain stigmas though that are always associated with
sociocultural context of the clinical care and these stigmas in mental
health leave a deep impact on the ;level and quality of delivered care.
This study focusses definition of mental health stigma, examples of
mental health stigma, potential effects of mental health stigma on a
person with mental illness, family and friends, others in that person’s
life, and someone who may have an undiagnosed mental illness. The
study also explores the relationships, jobs, and school as well as in all
other areas of living. Potential effects of mental health stigma on laws,
policies, available services, and other areas within the community. The
study explores interventions that are required to manage the issues.

Mental health and the stigmas
 Mental health is a challenging profession in which the health
care staffs such as the various nursing and the medical staffs
as well as the allied health care staffs works towards a more
patient centered care and restoration of cognition and
important aspects of behavior plus memory that are required
for sustenance of a daily day to day life (Wu et al., 2017).
 There are certain stigmas though that are always associated
with sociocultural context of the clinical care and these
stigmas in mental health leave a deep impact on the ;level
and quality of delivered care (Bharadwaj, Pai & Suziedelyte
2017).

Issues of mental health stigma
 It is critical to be understood that the mental health stigma are of various types and
the various perceptual problems that are associated with the patients and amongst
the health care staffs and between the patients and the health care staffs –and this
impact the mental health recovery process in a very adverse manner (Collado et al.,
2019).
 In many cases, the mental health stigma do not allow the subject to receive and the
staff to deliver the care in the way it should be delivered, to make it more effective.
 In many other cases, the presentation of mental health stigmas disrupt the initiation of
mental health care process as well.

Types of mental health stigma
 The major types of social stigma are - self-stigma and social stigma.
 The self stigma affects the perception of an individual towards the
development and presentation of a help seeking behavior and it is
critical to understand that it is the self stigma that affects the help
seeking or openness to treatment behavior of an individual in a great
manner.
 The social stigma also affects the levels of awareness of an individual
to a treatment and it is the social stigma regarding the mind state and
personality of a person who is about to take a treatment affects the help
seeking behavior in a great manner.

Factors affecting mental health
stigma
 Culture and society also play a very important role in the
development of mental health stigma.
 Negative perception about other others and religions as well
as negative perception towards certain races and groups by
other social groups and races also lead to the causation of
these stigmas.
 Self-Identity issues and history family traumas can lead to the
causation of mental health disorder but lack of self acceptance
of the situation or lack of acceptance of the family – also play
a great role in the development of these stigmas.

Factors affecting mental health
stigma
 Prejudice – prejudice against a happening, destiny and against
seeking psychiatric help is a issue in many families and societies and
it has created a barrier in many social groups, leading to formation of
mental health stigma.
 Preconceived ideas – prejudice has led to conception of
predetermined ideas that has affected the perception about receiving
of a health care in a very adverse way.
 Discrimination – the various discrimination feelings amongst the
caste, creed and religion as well as at the national level, between the
groups has also led to formation of mental health stigma in the
society.

Potential effects of mental health
stigma
 It leads to increase in the degree of mental health disorders and
mental health issues in the population.
 It affects the disease progression of an individual as the care process
is delayed.
 The family relationships are distorted due to various types of the
sociocultural disruption arising from the increase of mental health
stigma in a social scenario.
 The sociological connections are distorted in a great manner, owing
to the preconceptions, prejudices and the discriminations in a great
way.

Potential effects of mental health
stigma
 In relationships, the mental health stigmas affect the rate of
incidences of mental health affection in a great impactful
manner.
 The environments such as workplace and in school as well as
in other areas of living affect the mental health stigma
conditions in a very adverse manner (Sickel, Seacat & Nabors
2019).
 It is to be considered that in a society, where the conception
about mental health is not clear at all, the prejudices against
the people who has mental health issues and this restricts the
level of care even further.

Effects of mental health stigma
on legal parameters
 The mental health stigmas affects the right making of the policies
and the various laws that are intended to develop a more focused
patient centered care in a mental health scenario.
 The policymaking towards the use of restraints and the use of
electroconvulsive therapy that are seen critically on ethical grounds
and various mental health stigmas clouds around these therapeutic
areas.

Effects of mental health stigma
on legal parameters
 The available services that are present in a community rehabilitation
scenario effect the influence of mental health issues in a therapeutic
scenario
 The various types of available services includes mental health
assessments and the various types of examinations are performed in
a clinical scenario as well as in community rehabilitation to end the
mental health stigma cases.

Interventions
 The community assessment as well as counselling is required to
develop more sustainable strategies in addressed the barriers
associated with mental health stigmas.
 Staff development sessions and adequate training of the staffs about
the cultural competence is important to remove the negative
perceptions and negative attitudes towards mental health – has to be
undertaken properly.

References
 Wu, I. H., Bathje, G. J., Kalibatseva, Z., Sung, D., Leong, F. T., &
Collins-Eaglin, J. (2017). Stigma, mental health, and counseling
service use: A person-centered approach to mental health stigma
profiles. Psychological services, 14(4), 490.
 Bharadwaj, P., Pai, M. M., & Suziedelyte, A. (2017). Mental health
stigma. Economics Letters, 159, 57-60.
 Sickel, A. E., Seacat, J. D., & Nabors, N. A. (2019). Mental health
stigma: Impact on mental health treatment attitudes and physical
health. Journal of health psychology, 24(5), 586-599.
 Collado, A., Zvolensky, M., Lejuez, C., & MacPherson, L. (2019).
Mental health stigma in depressed Latinos over the course of therapy:
Results from a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical
Psychology, 75(7), 1179-1187.