The Effect of Contact Theory for De-stigmatizing Psychiatric Patients

接觸理論於精神疾病的去汙名化效應

王志豪(Chih-Hao Wang) ； 顏銘漢(Ming-Han Yen)

《台灣精神醫學》 31卷4期 (2017/12) Pp. 346-354

摘要

Objective: People with mental illnesses are one of the most stigmatized, discriminated against, and marginalized groups. The study was to explore the effect of contact theory for de-stigmatizing psychiatric patients. Methods: We recruited 123 participants, and divided them into two groups with different models of contact. We intended to explore if the attitudes of the participants with different demographic data changed after contacting psychiatric patients and to compare differences of scores of modified version of Opinions about Mental Illness in the Chinese Community or the scores of the Attitude Scale for Mental Illness. Results: Before contact, the participants with higher family monthly income got signifi cantly higher scores in the factor of separatism and total score (p ＜ 0.05). The participants without mentally ill relatives or friends got significantly higher scores in the factor of benevolence (p ＜ 0.05) and total score (p ＜ 0.05). The participants without previous contact with psychiatric patients got significantly higher scores in the factors of benevolence (p ＜ 0.05) and pessimistic prediction (p ＜ 0.05). After contact, for total participants, positive changes were seen in the dimensions of overall attitude, separatism, and pessimistic prediction; significantly more negative changes were seen in the dimension of restrictiveness (p ＜ 0.05). Conclusion: The study has shown the positive effect of contact theory for de-stigmatizing psychiatric patients in many aspects. Setting up feasible models to use the contact theory for de-stigmatizing psychiatric patients is suggested in the future studies and activities.

關鍵字

psychiatric disease ； contact theory ； stigmatization ； de-stigmatization

參考文獻

1. Johnstone MJ: Stigma, social justice and the rights of the mentally ill: challenging the status quo. Aust N Z J Ment Health Nurs 2001; 10: 200-9.

2. Alicke MD: Culpable control and the psychology of blame. Psychol Bull 2000; 126: 556-74.

3. Corrigan PW, Edwards AB, Green A, Diwan SL, Penn DL: Prejudice, social distance, and familiarity with mental illness. Schizophr Bull 2001; 27: 219-25.

4. Blankertz L: Cognitive components of self esteem for individuals with severe mental illness. Am J Orthopsychiatry 2001; 71: 457-65.

5. Blascovich J, Mendes WB, Hunter SB, Lickel B, Kowai-Bell N: Perceiver threat in social interactions with stigmatized others. J Person Soc Psychol 2001; 80: 253-67.