Past Issues

Objective: People with mental illnesses are one of the most stigmatized, discriminated against, and marginalized groups. The study was to explore the effect of contact theory for de-stigmatizing psychiatric patients. Methods: We recruited 123 participants, and divided them into two groups with different models of contact. We intended to explore if the attitudes of the participants with different demographic data changed after contacting psychiatric patients and to compare differences of scores of modifi ed version of Opinions about Mental Illness in the Chinese Community or the scores of the Attitude Scale for Mental Illness. Results: Before contact, the participants with higher family monthly income got signifi cantly higher scores in the factor of separatism and total score (p < 0.05). The participants without mentally ill relatives or friends got signifi cantly higher scores in the factor of benevolence (p < 0.05) and total score (p < 0.05). The participants without previous contact with psychiatric patients got signifi cantly higher scores in the factors of benevolence (p < 0.05) and pessimistic prediction (p < 0.05). After contact, for total participants, positive changes were seen in the dimensions of overall attitude, separatism, and pessimistic prediction; signifi cantly more negative changes were seen in the dimension of restrictiveness (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The study has shown the positive effect of contact theory for de-stigmatizing psychiatric patients in many aspects. Setting up feasible models to use the contact theory for de-stigmatizing psychiatric patients is suggested in the future studies and activities.