The professional ideas' influence on the perception of the image of a mentally ill person

Abstract

People with different level of psychiatric knowledge have different attitudes towards mental ill people. We compared three groups of people: clinical psychologists, psychologists (both groups — students just before graduation), economists. Both clinical psychologists and psychologists (as people who have scientific knowledge about psychiatry) are less stigmatizing mentally sick people than economists, who mostly haven't scientific knowledge in this area. People who met mental patient also stigmatize this kind of people less than people who never contacted with psychiatric patients.

Keywords

• stigmatization
• mental ill patient
• mental ill patient's image
• psychology students
• communication with mental ill patients