The Impact of Stigma in Seeking Mental Healthcare

Abstract

Stigma is an insidious social force that has been associated with multiple attributes, circumstances, health conditions, and social groups, and which unfolds at many different levels – social, institutional, and self-stigma. Mentally ill people represent one of the most widespread targets of prejudice, discrimination, and social exclusion. Consequences of stigma are alarming and dangerous; stigma has been associated with preventing people from seeking help, reducing compliance to treatment, increasing dropouts, and even increasing suicidal ideation. Stigma also affects health care professionals, providers, and organizations, with the effect of worsening the access to mental health care and treatment, but also increasing the social exclusion and impairing wellbeing. Nevertheless, the awareness and the recognition of stigma as a major societal problem has contributed to the development, validation, and implementation of many anti-stigma programs, some of which appear to be promising ways to fight against this insidious phenomenon.