Campaign appears to influence subjective experience of stigma

An English mental health trust implemented a strategy to dispel the stigma surrounding mental illness and service users. The purpose of this study was to evaluate its impact.

A questionnaire was mailed to 600 service users, selected at random, to evaluate the campaign's impact. Factor analysis of 243 responses yielded three factors which could be interpreted in relation to service users' perceptions of: public attitudes towards mental illness, service users' relationships with staff and other inter-personal relationships.

Significant improvement was found in service users' perceptions of public attitudes towards mental illness. This can cautiously be related to the main thrust of the campaign. No change was found in the other two factors, which supports the inference that the campaign specifically influenced users' experience of public portrayals of mental illness.

This study indicates that certain aspects of stigma may be amenable to change through a targeted campaign. While users' experience of public attitudes may be improved, at least in the short-term, other aspects of stigma did not appear to be amenable to change through community-level interventions. Different dimensions of stigma seem to demand different approaches. The intra-psychic roots of stigma may be the hardest elements to change.