An Anti-Stigma Course for Occupational Therapy Students in Taiwan: Development and Pilot Testing.

Hui-Ing Ma,Chu-En Hsieh

doi:10.3390/ijerph17155599

Abstract

Attitudes of healthcare professionals towards people with disorders/disabilities are important for the development of therapeutic relationships, as well as to the evaluation and intervention processes. Therefore, it is critical to be aware and reduce stigmatizing attitudes in future healthcare professionals. An 18-week anti-stigma course was developed for occupational therapy students based on literature review and focus group interview. The course consisted of three components, including social contact, roleplaying, and critical reflection strategies. A quasi-experimental design was implemented to evaluate participants at three time points (i.e., pre-test, post-test, and one year after completion) using the Social Distance Scale and several questionnaires (i.e., stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness, physical disabilities, and children with emotional behavioural disorders). A total of 16 students completed the course and had significantly decreased social distance and stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness and emotional behavioural disorders in the post-test. These decreases remained one year later. The results support the provision of an anti-stigma course for occupational therapy students to reduce stigmatising attitudes. Future research should extend the anti-stigma course to occupational therapy students at other universities to increase both the sample size and overall generalisability.

Highlights

Stigma can be understood as incorrect understandings, negative attitudes, and discriminatory behaviours towards people with devalued characteristics [1]
Scores were significantly lower for the post-test and follow-up when compared with pre-test results for most items on the Social Distance Scale and the subscales for stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness and children with emotional behavioural disorders (EBD)
By using the Social Distance Scale and questionnaires on stigmatising attitudes, we demonstrated that the course significantly reduced the stigmatising attitudes that occupational therapy (OT) students held towards mental illness and EBD

Summary

Introduction

Stigma can be understood as incorrect understandings, negative attitudes, and discriminatory behaviours towards people with devalued characteristics [1]. Disorders and disabilities are often stigmatised by members of the general public, including healthcare practitioners [2,3]. Some patients have reported stigma-related experiences when interacting with healthcare professionals [4]. These experiences are likely to aggravate existing feelings of rejection and incompetence, hindering these individuals from seeking and participating in treatments [5]. Students entering the healthcare profession may share public stigma rooted in our sociocultural system [6]. Medical education has been found to both reduce and aggravate stigma [7]

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Discussion

Conclusion