Abstract
BackgroundMedia coverage on mental health problems has been found to vary by newspaper type, and stigma disproportionately affects people with mental illness by diagnosis.ObjectiveThis study investigated the relationships between types of UK national newspaper (tabloid vs. broadsheet), illness classification (SMI–severe mental illnesses vs. CMD–common mental disorders), and stigmatising coverage of mental disorders, and whether these relationships changed over the course of the Time to Change anti-stigma programmes in England and Wales.MethodsSecondary analysis of data from a study of UK newspaper coverage of mental illness was performed. Relevant articles from nine UK national newspapers in 2008–11, 2013, 2016 and 2019 were retrieved. A structured coding framework was used for content analysis. The odds an article was stigmatising in a tabloid compared to a broadsheet, and about SMI compared to CMD, were calculated. Coverage of CMD and SMI by newspaper typewas compared using the content elements categorised as stigmatising or anti-stigmatising.Results2719 articles were included for analysis. Articles in tabloids had 1.32 times higher odds of being stigmatising than articles in broadsheet newspapers (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.12–1.55). Odds of stigmatising coverage was 1.72 times higher for articles on SMI than CMD (OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.39–2.13). Different patterns in reporting were observed when results were stratified by years for all analyses. A few significant associations were observed for the portrays of stigmatising elements between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers regarding SMI or CMD.ConclusionsTailored interventions are needed for editors and journalists of different newspaper types, to include specific strategies for different diagnoses.
Highlights
Stigma is recognised as an important public health issue and a challenge for people with mental disorders globally [1]
The present study aimed to examine the relationships between types of UK newspaper, disease classification, and stigmatising coverage regarding mental health problems over an 11-year period since the start of Time to Change
Our study is the first to investigate the relationships between stigmatising coverage, newspaper type, and mental disorder classification (SMI vs CMD) in the UK
Summary
Stigma is recognised as an important public health issue and a challenge for people with mental disorders globally [1]. Many studies showed that people with schizophrenia are perceived by the public as being the most dangerous, violent and unpredictable compared to people with other mental disorder [10,11,12] Because of this anti-stigma campaigns often target schizophrenia [13, 14]. The overall coding of articles in 2016 revealed that reports on all diagnoses, except for schizophrenia, were more often anti-stigmatising than stigmatising [28] It remains unclear whether and how this antistigma programme may have influenced reporting on different classifications of mental disorders (i.e. SMI vs CMD) over time or in different types of newspapers (i.e. tabloid vs broadsheet).
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