A systematic review on prevalence and perceived impacts of associative stigma on mental health professionals

Abstract

Mental disorders are mostly stigmatized disorders among the general public but recent evidence shows stigmatization of mental health professionals in what is termed associative stigma. This study involved systematic literature review to synthesize current evidence on the Prevalence and Perceived Impacts of Associative stigma on Mental Health Professionals. We sourced for empirical evidence in Scopus, Science Direct, PubMed and Google scholar. A total of 8661 articles were found in the initial search from which 12 peer reviewed articles (4914 respondents) from 2009 to 2019 met the inclusion criteria. The review found that mental health professionals are seriously stigmatized against by the public and the other health professionals. The prevalence of the associative stigma ranged from 5.8% to 75% across studies. Impacts such as job dissatisfaction, poor resilience, self-stigma among patients and poor quality of care resulting from stigma were noted. There is high evidence of associative stigma against mental health professionals with serious impacts on the professionals, patients and care delivery. This calls for evidence based policy and professional body team work to improve the poor image assigned to the vital profession. However, there is still limited peer reviewed research evidence on the above subject matter hence need for more studies.

Keywords

• Associative stigma
• Stereotype
• Mental health nurses
• Psychiatrist
• Social workers