Study of stigma among depressed and COVID-19 infected patients

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Stigma is a phenomenon of underlying difficulties. It is one of the major challenges interfering with health care services especially in the need of rapid efficient dealing like what we have in covid 19 pandemic and mental health. In our study we assessed the presence of stigma in covid 19 infected patients and depressed patients and assessed certain factors that might associated with stigmatization. Methods: The study was conducted among 70 patients; 35 patients with depression and 35 patients post COVID-19 using the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue (EMIC) Stigma scale from outpatient psychiatric and chest clinics after verification of diagnoses. Results: The EMIC score of the studied groups showed that the mean score of depressed group is significantly higher than the mean score of covid group (28.2 ± 9.8 vs 21.7 ± 9.4, respectively). There was a non-significant negative correlation between age and stigma. Association between sex and EMIC score among the different groups showed that females were more affected than male in both groups, while we found that EMIC score higher mean in single (29.6 ± 9.3) than married (26.5 ± 10.5) in depressed group and was nearly equal in COVID-19 group. Also, we found an association between educational level, work and stigma in both groups. Conclusion: Stigma is still a major concern affecting the efficiency of health care with more prevalent against mental health (depressed patients) than covid 19 patients. Age, sex, educational level and work all of them should considered factors of stigmatization.