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"Unfortunately, we treat the chart:" sources of stigma in mental health settings
Elizabeth H Flanagan1, Rebecca Miller, Larry Davidson
1Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, 319 Peck Street, Building 1, New Haven, CT 06513, USA. elizabeth.flanagan@yale.edu
Background:
Stigma within mental health settings may be equally detrimental to people with mental illnesses as societal stigma.
Aims:
This study investigated stigma in mental health settings through a mixed qualitative-quantitative design.
Method:
Practitioners at a community mental health center indicated (1) their subjective experience of treating people with mental illness, and (2) descriptive features of people with mental illness.
Results:
Interpretive phenomenological analysis found that a primary theme across practitioners was the causes and effects of labeling patients, a process practitioners attributed to other practitioners and/or to systemic pressures to "treat the chart" instead of the patient. Beyond symptoms and deficits, practitioners rated people with mental illnesses as "insightful" and "able to recover."
Conclusions:
These data suggest that stigma in mental health settings may be due to structural, systemic pressures on practitioners, with practitioners' emphasis on symptoms and deficits as a secondary factor.
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