Mental illness stigma and barriers to care: exploring the role of social support as a moderator

Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Every year in America approximately 43.8 million people face some form of mental illness (NAMNI, 2016). Stigma acts as a barrier to care for many people experiencing mental illness (Corrigan, 2004), yet there is evidence that social support may act as a resilience tool by protecting people from the negative impact of stigma (Earnshaw et al., 2015). This study explored whether stigma is associated with poor attitudes toward help seeking among individuals living with mental illness, and if social support moderates this association. A total of 98 people with mental illness were surveyed online about their experience with mental health stigma impact, social support, and attitudes towards help seeking. This is one of the first studies to examine mental health and stigma from a broader lens of stigma by using a measure of stigma impact. The results demonstrate stigma impact is associated with poorer attitudes toward help seeking. Moreover, at low levels of social support, there is no association between stigma impact and help seeking attitudes. At high levels of social support, stigma impact is associated with worse attitudes toward help seeking.
Description
Keywords
Psychology, Health and environmental sciences, Barriers to care, Health care, Help seeking, Mental health, Social support, Stigma
Citation