Public Stigma against People with Mental Illness in Jimma Town, Southwest Ethiopia

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 11; no. 11; p. e0163103
• Main Authors: Reta, Yared, Tesfaye, Markos, Girma, Eshetu, Dehning, Sandra, Adorjan, Kristina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 28-11-2016; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis; Attitudes; Authoritarianism; Autocracy; Beneficence; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Community Mental Health Services; Community relations; Consent; Cross-Sectional Studies; Earth Sciences; Employment; Epidemiology; Ethics; Ethiopia - ethnology; Female; Females; Homemakers; Humans; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mental Health; Mental health care; Mentally ill persons; Middle Aged; People and Places; Physical Sciences; Population; Prejudice; Psychotherapy; Public health; Public Opinion; Regression analysis; Religion; Research and Analysis Methods; Rural areas; Schizophrenia; Self esteem; Social Sciences; Social Stigma; Socioeconomic Factors; Sociology; Stereotyping; Stigma; Stigma (Social psychology); Studies; Ethiopia; Germany; Addis Ababa Ethiopia
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163103

Stigma towards people with mental illness (PWMI) can result in low self-esteem and isolation and threaten employment. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the magnitude of public stigma against PWMI and factors associated with it among Jimma town residents.
A community-based, cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted in adult residents of Jimma town. Data were collected among 820 randomly selected residents with the interviewer-administered Community Attitudes toward the Mentally Ill (CAMI) scale. Linear regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of stigma against PWMI.
A total of 444 (54%) of the 820 respondents were females, and the mean (SD) age was 35 (8.5) years. The minimum and maximum possible values on each CAMI subscale were 10 and 50, respectively. The respondents had high scores for a stigmatizing attitude towards PWMI across all the subscales, as indicated by the mean (SD) scores: authoritarianism, 27.17 (4.96); social restrictiveness, 32.41 (4.20); benevolence, 35.34 (4.42); and community-based mental health ideology, 33.95 (5.82). Compared to housewives, private organization employees showed more autocratic and socially restrictive views (std. β = 1.12, P<0.01). Single people had a lower social restrictiveness stigma score than married people (std. β = -0.20, P<0.001), and participants' academic levels correlated inversely with the stigma score (std. β = -0.12, P<0.001). A higher benevolence stigma score was observed among participants with no relationship with PWMI than among those with PWMI in their neighborhood (std. β = 0.08, P< 0.046).
The study revealed that a negative attitude towards PWMI is widespread. Therefore, there is a need to develop strategies to fight the stigma attached to PWMI at the community level.