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[Stigmatizing patients at an inpatient unit of child and adolescent psychiatry]
Insights
Children treated in psychiatric units face significant social stigma, with about 50% of children and 30% of parents reporting stigmatizing experiences. This fear leads to concealment of treatment, highlighting a critical issue for child psychiatry.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Social Psychology
- Mental Health Services Research
Context:
- Pilot study investigating patient stigmatization in child psychiatric care.
- Examines experiences of former child in-patients and their parents.
- Focuses on social environment reactions following inpatient treatment.
Purpose:
- To assess the prevalence and impact of stigmatization on children and families after psychiatric inpatient treatment.
- To explore the relationship between stigmatization and demographic/treatment variables.
- To identify strategies for mitigating patient stigmatization in child psychiatry.
Summary:
- Approximately 30% of parents and 50% of children reported experiencing stigmatizing reactions due to inpatient psychiatric treatment.
- Few significant correlations were found between stigmatization and demographic factors, treatment characteristics, or attitudes towards psychiatry.
- Fear of stigma motivates families to conceal treatment history, even from close relatives.
Impact:
- Highlights the pervasive issue of social stigma affecting child psychiatric patients and their families.
- Underscores the need for child and adolescent psychiatry services to actively address and combat patient stigmatization.
- Suggests the development of interventions to reduce or prevent stigmatization, improving treatment acceptance and outcomes.
Abstract:
In a pilot study covering a sample of n = 25 children formerly treated as in-patients within a child psychiatric unit and n = 40 parents of former in-patients, approx. 30% of the parents indicated that their children had been exposed to stigmatizing behaviour reactions by their social environment in consequence of their stay at the unit. The children themselves felt stigmatized in approx. 50% of cases. Correlations between stigmatization and demographic variables, characteristics of treatment or subjects' attitudes towards child and adolescent psychiatry were rarely found to be significant. Because of their fear of stigmatization, there are tendencies among parents as well as patients to conceal the children's in-patient treatment, these tendencies sometimes even concerning the inner family circle. The paper stresses the need for child and adolescent psychiatry to face the problem of patient stigmatization and suggests possible steps to be taken in order to relieve or even prevent stigmatization.