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Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery
PURPOSE: The decision whether to disclose a mental illness has individual and social consequences. Secrecy may protect from stigma and discrimination while disclosure can increase social support and facilitate help-seeking. Therefore, disclosure decisions are a key reaction to stigma. The first aim...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8784363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33895868 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-021-02081-1 |
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author | Mayer, Lea Corrigan, Patrick W. Eisheuer, Daniela Oexle, Nathalie Rüsch, Nicolas |
author_facet | Mayer, Lea Corrigan, Patrick W. Eisheuer, Daniela Oexle, Nathalie Rüsch, Nicolas |
author_sort | Mayer, Lea |
collection | PubMed |
description | PURPOSE: The decision whether to disclose a mental illness has individual and social consequences. Secrecy may protect from stigma and discrimination while disclosure can increase social support and facilitate help-seeking. Therefore, disclosure decisions are a key reaction to stigma. The first aim of this study was to test a newly developed scale to measure disclosure attitudes, the Attitudes to Disclosure Questionnaire (AtDQ). The second aim was to examine the impact of attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness on quality of life and recovery. METHODS: Among 100 participants with mental illness, disclosure attitudes, quality of life, recovery, benefits of disclosure, secrecy, social withdrawal, self-stigma, and depressive symptoms were assessed at weeks 0, 3 and 6. Psychometric properties of the AtDQ were analysed. Longitudinal associations between disclosure attitudes at baseline and quality of life and recovery after 6 weeks were examined in linear regressions. RESULTS: The analyses of the AtDQ indicated one-factor solutions, high acceptability, high internal consistency, and good retest reliability for the total scale and the subscales as well as high construct validity of the total scale. Results provided initial support for sensitivity to change. More positive disclosure attitudes in general and in particular regarding to family at baseline predicted better quality of life and recovery after 6 weeks. CONCLUSION: The current study provides initial support for the AtDQ as a useful measure of disclosure attitudes. Disclosing a mental illness, especially with respect to family, may improve quality of life and recovery of people with mental illness. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00127-021-02081-1. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8784363 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-87843632022-02-02 Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery Mayer, Lea Corrigan, Patrick W. Eisheuer, Daniela Oexle, Nathalie Rüsch, Nicolas Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol Original Paper PURPOSE: The decision whether to disclose a mental illness has individual and social consequences. Secrecy may protect from stigma and discrimination while disclosure can increase social support and facilitate help-seeking. Therefore, disclosure decisions are a key reaction to stigma. The first aim of this study was to test a newly developed scale to measure disclosure attitudes, the Attitudes to Disclosure Questionnaire (AtDQ). The second aim was to examine the impact of attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness on quality of life and recovery. METHODS: Among 100 participants with mental illness, disclosure attitudes, quality of life, recovery, benefits of disclosure, secrecy, social withdrawal, self-stigma, and depressive symptoms were assessed at weeks 0, 3 and 6. Psychometric properties of the AtDQ were analysed. Longitudinal associations between disclosure attitudes at baseline and quality of life and recovery after 6 weeks were examined in linear regressions. RESULTS: The analyses of the AtDQ indicated one-factor solutions, high acceptability, high internal consistency, and good retest reliability for the total scale and the subscales as well as high construct validity of the total scale. Results provided initial support for sensitivity to change. More positive disclosure attitudes in general and in particular regarding to family at baseline predicted better quality of life and recovery after 6 weeks. CONCLUSION: The current study provides initial support for the AtDQ as a useful measure of disclosure attitudes. Disclosing a mental illness, especially with respect to family, may improve quality of life and recovery of people with mental illness. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00127-021-02081-1. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-04-24 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8784363/ /pubmed/33895868 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-021-02081-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Mayer, Lea Corrigan, Patrick W. Eisheuer, Daniela Oexle, Nathalie Rüsch, Nicolas Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
title | Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
title_full | Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
title_fullStr | Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
title_full_unstemmed | Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
title_short | Attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
title_sort | attitudes towards disclosing a mental illness: impact on quality of life and recovery |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8784363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33895868 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-021-02081-1 |
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