Citation

Kopera M, Suszek H, Bonar EE, Myszka M, Gmaj B, Ilgen M, Wojnar M. Community Ment. Health J. 2014; 51(5): 628-634.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of Warsaw, Nowowiejska 27, 00-665, Warsaw, Poland, maciej.kopera@wum.edu.pl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10597-014-9796-6

PMID

25535045

Abstract

The study investigated explicit and implicit attitudes towards people with mental illness among medical students (non-professionals) with no previous contact with mentally ill patients and psychiatrists and psychotherapists (professionals) who had at least 2 years of professional contact with mentally ill patients. Explicit attitudes where assessed by self-report. Implicit attitudes were measured with the Go/No-Go Association Task, a variant of the Implicit Association Test that does not require the use of a comparison category. Compared to non-professionals, mental health professionals reported significantly higher approach emotions than non-professionals towards people with mental illness, showed a lesser tendency to discriminate against them, and held less restrictive attitudes. Both groups reported negative implicit attitudes towards mentally ill.

RESULTS suggest that both non-professionals and professionals display ambivalent attitudes towards people with mental illness and that professional, long-term contact with people with mental illness does not necessarily modify negative implicit attitudes.

Language: en