The Prevalence Of Self Stigma Among Psychiatric Patients

This is a cross sectional study to find out the prevalence of self stigma among the group of psychiatric patients being studied.The sample size is 96 psychiatric patients.The study is conducted in the Psychiatry Department of a medical college in Mangalore.The primary outcome is the prevalence of self stigma among the group of psychiatric patients being studied.The secondary outcome is the association between self stigma and clinical variables,socio-demographic variables,self esteem.

Stigma refers to the discriminatory way of thinking which is commonly seen in the society regarding a particular group of people.The term self stigma indicates a state where a person internalises these negative attitudes which are engraved in the minds of the community members in which the patient lives.In the context of this study,we are looking at the psychiatric patients to evaluate how many of them internalise discriminatory way of thinking about themselves,according to the attitudes which are prevalent in the society.When the psychiatric patient develops ideas of internalised stigma,he often loses his feeling of self worth,isolates himself with the attitude of belonging to a group which is shunned by the public and feels that he or she can never change these stigmatising ideas about self.In the Indian socio-cultural setting,doubts,misconceptions and superstitions about psychiatric illness has led to stigmatising ideas in the society and in turn led to self stigma.Self stigma in psychiatric patients can lead to low self esteem,reduced quality of life,isolation,risk of deliberate self harm and poor treatment adherence.Hence it is important to know how rampant are self stigmatising attitudes among psychiatric patients to address consequent difficulties that patients face and ensure better treatment compliance and outcome.