Abstract
The Community Psychiatric Support Organization is a registered voluntary not for profit NGO in Uganda working to promote mental health by empowering the community to care for the mentally ill. Mental illness occurring in Uganda is often ‘explored’ or ‘explained’ from non-medical perspectives, including social, cultural, and/or religious belief systems. Over the last two years, the organization has conducted sixty six (66) live radio mental health education talks and twenty six (26) live television talk shows in an effort to reduce stigma towards mental illness. Such campaigns within developing contexts have not be examined extensively, although, in other sectors such as health promotion and disease prevention, it has been found to be highly successful. The retrospective document review of personal journaled materials related to the mental health messaging (radio and television) and responses between 2013 and 2015. These journals captured responses by callers, which were then analyzed using a content analysis methodology. Through this effort, it was recognized that there is an appetite of the public for necessary and appropriate information about mental health in their community. It has also shown the need to more efforts to share information and knowledge about mental health in a manner which reaches the public to reduce misperceptions and misinformation in a manner which is culturally appropriate and social acceptable. This is a major challenge in a context of development which faces various levels of literacy, embedded social/cultural beliefs, religious strengths, and a lack of resources to address mental illness.
Highlights
Mass media is one of the public’s primary sources of information about mental health disorders such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and depression [1]
Corrigan emphasizes the loss of opportunity for the mentally ill to contribute as a result of stigmatization [14]
According to Clement et al [20] anti-stigma strategies such as mass media interventions have not been adequately evaluated for costbenefit, effectiveness, message clarity, and policy impact. These same authors indicated that there have been limited studies in low and middle income countries, where the issues of mental health are often embedded in social and cultural structures that further stigmatize and disenfranchise those afflicted with mental health conditions [21,22] and warn that there is a risk for mass media campaigns to ‘backfire’ resulting in further stigmatization
Summary
Mass media is one of the public’s primary sources of information about mental health disorders such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and depression [1]. Mass media interventions vary as to their target populations (i.e., public, youth, mentally ill clients), sources (i.e., government; community groups), and topic specificity (i.e., mental health generally; specific single mental health condition). These same authors indicated that there have been limited studies in low and middle income countries, where the issues of mental health are often embedded in social and cultural structures that further stigmatize and disenfranchise those afflicted with mental health conditions [21,22] and warn that there is a risk for mass media campaigns to ‘backfire’ resulting in further stigmatization.
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