This Research Topic is the second volume of the "Community Series In Mental-Health-Related Stigma and Discrimination: Prevention, Role, and Management Strategies". Please see the first volume
here.
Despite the tremendous progress and successes achieved in diagnostics, therapy, and rehabilitation in psychiatry over the past few decades, the stigma towards mental health patients, their relatives and caregivers, and healthcare professionals is still present.
Social stigma, in particular, represents a major obstacle to maintaining adequate mental health care. This increases reluctance to seek help delays patients' diagnosis and limits their compliance and adherence to treatment. In the long term, this reduces psychiatric rehabilitation effectiveness and causes a burden to healthcare providers and society alike.
The main goal of this Research Topic is to evaluate the impact and role of stigma, in all its forms, on individuals with psychiatric disorders, their caregivers, and mental health providers.
We aim to better characterize the implications of social stigma on clinical practice, to understand how stigma can negatively affect patients' quality of life, and to synthesize effective strategies that help overcome it.
Of interest will be articles addressing the following questions:
- Studies describing the effects of stigma on the quality of life of psychiatric patients and their caregivers
- Studies describing stigma towards mental illness among healthcare workers
- Studies describing stigma towards mental illness among influential people like artists and politicians
- Studies describing stigma towards mental illness among vulnerable populations, such as adolescents, elderly, pregnant women, and military populations
- Studies describing the depiction of mental health and illness in social media
- Studies describing stigma towards people with gender dysphoria
- Studies describing the impact of social stigma on psychopathology, evolution of the illness, and prognosis
- Studies describing the consequences of mental health stigma among mental health providers.