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Experience of the Time to Change programme in England as predictor of mental health service users' stigma coping strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

G. Sampogna*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Naples SUN, Naples, Italy
I. Bakolis
Affiliation:
Health Services and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
E. Robinson
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
E. Corker
Affiliation:
Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry, WHO Collaborative Centre for Mental Health, London E13 8SP H, UK
V. Pinfold
Affiliation:
McPin Foundation, 32-36 Loman Street, London SE1 0E, UK
G. Thornicroft
Affiliation:
Health Services and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
C. Henderson
Affiliation:
Health Services and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: G. Sampogna, Department of Psychiatry, University of Naples SUN, Largo Madonna delle Grazie, 80138 Naples, Italy. (Email: gaia.sampogna@gmail.com)
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Abstract

Aims.

In the field of stigma research, an area of interest is the coping strategies that mental health service users can use in response to discriminatory experiences. As a part of the evaluation of the Time to Change (TTC) anti-stigma programme, the Viewpoint telephone survey was run annually in order to assess service users' reported levels of discrimination and selected coping strategies. The study aim is to test the extent to which experience of TTC programme is a positive predictor of selected coping strategies.

Methods.

Telephone interview surveys carried out by peer interviewers were conducted annually. ‘Educating others’ and ‘challenging’ coping strategies were assessed alongside anticipated and experienced discrimination.

Results.

During 2011–2014, 3903 mental health service users were interviewed. Participants more often adopted the ‘educating others’ strategy (2.31 ± 0.01) than the ‘challenging’ strategy (2.15 ± 0.02) (p < 0.001). On the other hand, those who participated in campaign activities endorsed ‘challenging’ more frequently than people who were not aware of TTC (2.78 ± 1.23 v. 2.09 ± 1.08, p < 0.001). According to the multi-variate linear regression model, we found that being actively involved in TTC activities (OR = 0.74, CI: 0.29–1.19; p < 0.05), having a diagnosis of a depressive disorder (OR = 0.20, CI: 0.04–0.36; p < 0.05) or personality disorder (OR = 0.23, CI: 0.04–0.43; p < 0.05) were good predictors of endorsing a ‘challenging’ strategy even after adjusted for confounding variables.

Conclusions.

A positive relationship between participating in the TTC programme and using the ‘challenging’ strategy was found. There is still a need to disentangle the complex association between these two coping strategies and the role of anti-stigma campaigns, promoting further local activities led by service users and carers' as well as all others stakeholders' associations.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016
Figure 0

Table 1. Socio-demographic characteristics of the sample of mental health users interviewed during the period 2011–2014

Figure 1

Table 2. Coping strategies and level of experience of the TTC campaign

Figure 2

Table 3. Multivariate multiple regression models – weighted sample