Influence of contact with schizophrenia on implicit attitudes towards schizophrenia patients held by clinical residents

Ataru Omori,Takashi Ideno,Kazuhisa Takemura,Hidehiko Takahashi,Yoshitaka Kawashima,Yoshiro Okubo,Amane Tateno

doi:10.1186/1471-244x-12-205

Abstract

BackgroundPatients with schizophrenia and their families have suffered greatly from stigmatizing effects. Although many efforts have been made to eradicate both prejudice and stigma, they still prevail even among medical professionals, and little is known about how contact with schizophrenia patients affects their attitudes towards schizophrenia.MethodsWe assessed the impact of the renaming of the Japanese term for schizophrenia on clinical residents and also evaluated the influence of contact with schizophrenia patients on attitudes toward schizophrenia by comparing the attitudes toward schizophrenia before and after a one-month clinical training period in psychiatry. Fifty-one clinical residents participated. Their attitudes toward schizophrenia were assessed twice, before and one month after clinical training in psychiatry using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as well as Link’s devaluation-discrimination scale.ResultsThe old term for schizophrenia, “Seishin-Bunretsu-Byo”, was more congruent with criminal than the new term for schizophrenia, “Togo-Shitcho-Sho”, before clinical training. However, quite opposite to our expectation, after clinical training the new term had become even more congruent with criminal than the old term. There was no significant correlation between Link's scale and IAT effect.ConclusionsRenaming the Japanese term for schizophrenia still reduced the negative images of schizophrenia among clinical residents. However, contact with schizophrenia patients unexpectedly changed clinical residents’ attitudes towards schizophrenia negatively. Our results might contribute to an understanding of the formation of negative attitudes about schizophrenia and assist in developing appropriate clinical training in psychiatry that could reduce prejudice and stigma concerning schizophrenia.

Highlights

Patients with schizophrenia and their families have suffered greatly from stigmatizing effects
There was no significant interaction between term and condition (F (1, 50) = 0.83), between condition and period (F (1, 50) = 0.00), or between period and term (F (1, 50) = 0.15).The significant interaction effect was explored further using a simple main effects analysis, which revealed that response latencies were significantly longer (p
We assessed the change in attitudes toward schizophrenia before and after clinical training in psychiatry to elucidate the effect of having contact with schizophrenia patients.The result from before clinical training demonstrated that the old term “Seishin-Bunretsu-Byo” (MindSplit Disease) was more congruent with criminal than the new term “Togo-Shitcho-Sho” (Integration Disorder), suggesting that the old term was strongly associated with “criminal” vs. “victims”, while the automatic association between the new term and criminal was not strong

Summary

Introduction

Patients with schizophrenia and their families have suffered greatly from stigmatizing effects. As part of the attempt to improve this situation, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology replaced the old Japanese term for schizophrenia, “Seishin-Bunretsu-Byo” (Mind-Split Disease), with a new term, “Togo-Shitcho-Sho” (Integration Disorder), officially announced at the 12th World Congress of Psychiatry, Yokohama, Japan, 2002 The former term has been said to lead the public to misunderstand and stigmatize individuals with schizophrenia. In the assessment we used IAT according to the previous study [22], as it was designed for both the old diagnostic Japanese term for schizophrenia, “Seishin-Bunretsu-Byo”, and the new diagnostic term “Togo-Shitcho-Sho” Before beginning their training in psychiatry, clinical residents have already completed their classroom course work in schizophrenia, but they have had little experience in terms of direct contact with schizophrenia patients. By comparing their attitudes toward schizophrenia between before and after their clinical psychiatry training, the significance of having contact with schizophrenia patients became clear, shedding some light on how contact with schizophrenia patients affects the formation of negative attitudes towards schizophrenia at implicit and explicit levels

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion