Give, and You Shall Receive: Mental Health Professionals and Stigma Towards Persons with Mental Illness

Volume 4 - Issue 3

Keng Chuan Soh*

Received: October 05, 2020;   Published: October 15, 2020

DOI: 10.32474/SJPBS.2020.04.000189

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Abstract

Stigma is one of the barriers that hinder people with mental illness from successfully engaging in treatment, which contributes to mental illness having a substantial global burden of disease. This review article examines the duality of the relationship between mental health professionals and stigma towards mental illness. Mental health professionals are subject to associative stigma by virtue of the people with mental illness whom they work with, which can bring about significant distress to the mental health professionals. Despite the need for a non-judgemental attitude for optimal engagement, Health care professionals are not immune from stigmatizing beliefs of their own. On top and above of anti-stigma initiatives with the general population in mind, healthcare workers have been prioritized as a target group for anti-stigma efforts. This is because they have the Potential to impact others, including both persons with mental illness and the general public, through the course of their daily work. Before their professional roles, the training stage might provide the ideal platform to introduce anti-stigma efforts. This benefits of this might not be immediately evident, but this has a long-lasting impact with the potential to turn the wheels of change at the societal level.

Keywords: Social stigma; Mental illness; Medical staff; Physician patient relations; Nursing staff; Nurse patient relations

Abstract| Introduction| Mental Health Professionals Being Stigmatized| Healthcare Professionals as Stigmatizers| Education as a Possible Means of Addressing the Problem| Future Research| Conclusion| Financial Disclosure| Declaration of Competing Interest| Indexing| References|