Determinants of Social Distance towards Schizophrenia, Depression, and Alcoholism
Sprache des Vortragstitels:
Englisch
Original Tagungtitel:
14th Conference of the European Sociological Association Europe and Beyond: Boundaries, Barriers and Belonging
Sprache des Tagungstitel:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
Using survey data from the project ?Monitoring Public Stigma Austria 2018? among the Austrian population we explore the following questions:
a) What are determinants for desired social distance towards people suffering from a mental illness?
b) Are there differences according to the type of disorder - specifically concerning schizophrenia (n~1000), depression and alcoholism (n for both ~ 500; split in questionnaire)?
Discrimination experiences ? public or structural ? are leading to negative consequences for people suffering from a mental illness (Millier/Schmidt/Angermeyer et al. 2014). Beside exclusion i.e. in the housing and labour market, research has pointed to tendencies of the social environment to avoid people with mental illnesses. ?Social distance scales? inform about the willingness to uphold social contacts to persons with deviant psychological conditions. Based on studies in Austria (Grausgruber et al. 1989) and following Martin et al. (2000) influencing factors on social distance are seen in the nature of the problem (behaviour), causal attributions, perceived dangerousness and the treatability of the disease. Desired social distance is probably as well differing according to sociodemographic characteristics and in some studies also dependant on personal contacts to persons suffering from the illness.
Literature:
Grausgruber, A./Hofmann, G./Schöny, W./Zapotoczky, K. (1989). Einstellung zu psychisch Kranken und zur psychosozialen Versorgung, Stuttgart: Thieme.
Martin, J.K./Pescosolido, B.A./Tuch, S.A. (2000). Of Fear and Loathing: The Role of ?Disturbing Behaviour?, Labels, and Causal Attribution in Shaping Public Attitudes Toward People with Mental Illness. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 41: 208-223.
Millier, A./Schmidt, U./Angermeyer, M. et al. (2014). Humanistic burden in schizophrenia: A literature review. Journal of Psychiatric Research 54: 85-93.