The influence of information on social and occupational outcome in mental illness on the attitudes of students in Turkey.

BACKGROUND: In this article, we have tried to evaluate the influence of a series of determinants of stigmatization of mental illness.

METHOD: 700 final year students of a University in Istanbul were asked to read one of 14 different hypothetical case stories. The stories contained different combinations of characteristics assumed to play a role in stigmatization. Each vignette was presented to 50 students. The stories were collected after five minutes and the following scales were completed: Characteristics Scale and Skill Assessment Scale. Analysis was conducted on each scale.

RESULTS: We found a statistically significant difference among the groups given different hypothetical cases (vignettes). According to the post-hoc analysis, only the subjects given the vignette in which social and occupational outcome information were lacking showed statistically significant difference from the rest of the population.

CONCLUSION: This study suggests that information on social and occupational outcome of mental illness influences the general perception of the mentally ill.