Development of public stigma toward people with mental health problems in Czechia 2013–2019

BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess the changes in public stigma towards people with mental health problems in Czechia; and to investigate the association between these and the exposure to the ongoing mental health care reform and one of its implementation projects focused on reducing stigma. METHODS: We analyzed data from three cross-sectional surveys representative of the Czech adult population. We used linear regression models to compare population attitudes and desire for future contact with people with mental health problems between the 2013/2014 baseline and the 2019 follow-up. In our 2019 sample, we employed linear regression models to assess the relationship between exposure to mental health care reform and nation-wide anti-stigma campaign, and population stigmatizing attitudes and intended behavior. We utilized a propensity score matching procedure to mitigate potential bias. RESULTS: The 2013, 2014, and 2019 datasets consisted of 1797, 1810, and 1077 participants, respectively. Population attitudes improved significantly between 2014 and 2019 (B = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.06; 1.93), but we did not detect a change in population desire for future contact with people with mental health problems. Exposure to the nationwide anti-stigma campaign or mental health care reform was associated with more favorable attitudes (B = 4.25, 95% CI = 2.07; 6.42 and B = 7.66, 95% CI = 3.91; 11.42), but not with higher desire for future contact with people with mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS: Mental health care reform and its nation-wide anti-stigma project seems to have a positive impact on population attitudes, but not on desire for future contact with people with mental health problems.