Treatment experiences with gender and discrimination among women with serious mental illness.

Abstract

The unique experiences of women with serious mental illness (SMI) are often overlooked in the literature in mental health and rehabilitation services. This population faces increased risk of violence, sexual abuse, treatment bias, and a number of health problems when compared with their male counterparts. Further research is needed to identify these differences and suggest clinical implications for working with women with SMI. The present qualitative research includes data from a grounded theory study analyzing interviews with 20 women with SMI to explore their treatment experiences with mental health providers. The following themes pertaining to treatment experiences of women with SMI were generated from qualitative analysis: diminishing dismissals (questions as to the legitimacy of the symptoms and concerns of women with SMI in their mental health treatment), symptom misattribution (erroneous ascriptions of their mental health symptoms), male mistrust (wariness toward, and avoidance of, male providers), psychiatric insults (perceptions that mental health providers tend to make stigmatizing diagnoses), doomsday predictions (experience of providers' negative prognoses of their future), and diagnostic reordering (tendency of mental health providers to revise prior diagnoses of women with SMI in ways that reduce stigma and build trust). Clinical implications of these findings will be discussed, including the need for enhanced awareness of providers as to the perceptions and expectations of gender bias in treatment among women with SMI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).