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Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have found that perceptions of mental health related stigma can negatively impact help-seeking, particularly in military samples. Moreover, perceptions of stigma and barriers to care can vary between individuals with different psychiatric disorders. The aim of this study...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6881983/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31775853 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0351-7 |
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author | Williamson, Victoria Greenberg, Neil Stevelink, Sharon A. M. |
author_facet | Williamson, Victoria Greenberg, Neil Stevelink, Sharon A. M. |
author_sort | Williamson, Victoria |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Previous studies have found that perceptions of mental health related stigma can negatively impact help-seeking, particularly in military samples. Moreover, perceptions of stigma and barriers to care can vary between individuals with different psychiatric disorders. The aim of this study was to examine whether perceptions of stigma and barriers to care differed in a UK military sample between those with and without a current likely mental health diagnosis. METHOD: Structured telephone interviews were carried out with 1432 service personnel and veterans who reported recent subjective mental ill health in the last 3 years. Participants completed self-reported measures relating to perceived stigma, barriers to care and psychological wellbeing. RESULTS: Those meeting criteria for probable common mental disorders (CMD) and PTSD were significantly more likely to report concerns relating to perceived and internalised stigma and barriers to care compared to participants without a likely mental disorder. Compared to individuals with likely CMD and alcohol misuse, those with probable PTSD reported higher levels of stigma-related concerns and barriers to care – although this difference was not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that perceptions of stigma continue to exist in UK serving personnel and military veterans with current probable mental disorders. Efforts to address particular concerns (e.g. being seen as weak; difficulty accessing appointments) may be worthwhile and, ultimately, lead to improvements in military personnel and veteran wellbeing. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6881983 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-68819832019-12-03 Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders Williamson, Victoria Greenberg, Neil Stevelink, Sharon A. M. BMC Psychol Research Article BACKGROUND: Previous studies have found that perceptions of mental health related stigma can negatively impact help-seeking, particularly in military samples. Moreover, perceptions of stigma and barriers to care can vary between individuals with different psychiatric disorders. The aim of this study was to examine whether perceptions of stigma and barriers to care differed in a UK military sample between those with and without a current likely mental health diagnosis. METHOD: Structured telephone interviews were carried out with 1432 service personnel and veterans who reported recent subjective mental ill health in the last 3 years. Participants completed self-reported measures relating to perceived stigma, barriers to care and psychological wellbeing. RESULTS: Those meeting criteria for probable common mental disorders (CMD) and PTSD were significantly more likely to report concerns relating to perceived and internalised stigma and barriers to care compared to participants without a likely mental disorder. Compared to individuals with likely CMD and alcohol misuse, those with probable PTSD reported higher levels of stigma-related concerns and barriers to care – although this difference was not significantly different. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that perceptions of stigma continue to exist in UK serving personnel and military veterans with current probable mental disorders. Efforts to address particular concerns (e.g. being seen as weak; difficulty accessing appointments) may be worthwhile and, ultimately, lead to improvements in military personnel and veteran wellbeing. BioMed Central 2019-11-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6881983/ /pubmed/31775853 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0351-7 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Williamson, Victoria Greenberg, Neil Stevelink, Sharon A. M. Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
title | Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
title_full | Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
title_fullStr | Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
title_full_unstemmed | Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
title_short | Perceived stigma and barriers to care in UK Armed Forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
title_sort | perceived stigma and barriers to care in uk armed forces personnel and veterans with and without probable mental disorders |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6881983/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31775853 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0351-7 |
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