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Determinants of mental health stigma among pharmacy students in Australia, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, India and Latvia

¹ Division of Social Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Finland (at time of writing)
² Division of Social Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Finland
³ Institute of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tartu, Estonia
⁴ Community Pharmacy Division, Indian Pharmaceutical Association, Mumbai, India
⁵ Faculty of Medicine, University of Latvia , Riga, Latvia
⁶ Faculty of Pharmacy, Riga Stradins University, Riga, Latvia
⁷ Research Centre for Pharmaceutical Care and Pharmaco-economics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
⁸ Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, Australia

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: simon.bell{at}helsinki.fi.

	Abstract

Background: Healthcare professionals commonly exhibit negative attitudes toward people with mental disorders. Few international studies have sought to investigate the determinants of stigma.

Objective: To conduct an international comparison of pharmacy students’ stigma towards people with schizophrenia, and to determine whether stigma is con-sistently associated with stereotypical attributes of people with schizophrenia.

Method: Students (n = 649) at eight universities in Australia, Belgium, India, Finland, Estonia and Latvia completed a seven-item Social Distance Scale (SDS) and six items related to stereotypical attributes of people with schizophrenia.

Results: Mean SDS scores were 19.65 (± 3.97) in Australia, 19.61 (± 2.92) in Belgium, 18.75 (± 3.57) in India, 18.05 (± 3.12) in Finland, and 20.90 (± 4.04) in Estonia and Latvia. Unpredictability was most strongly associated with having a high social distance in Australia (<>= –1.285), the perception that people will never recover in India (<> = –0.881), dangerousness in Finland (<> = –1.473) and the per-ception of being difficult to talk to in Estonia and Latvia (<> = –2.076). Unpredictability was associated with lower social distance in Belgium (<> = 0.839).

Conclusion: The extent to which students held stigmatizing attitudes was similar in each country, however, the determinants of stigma were different. Pharmacy education may need to be tailored to address the determinants of stigma in each country.

First published on October 27, 2009
International Journal of Social Psychiatry 2009, doi:10.1177/0020764008097621


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