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Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals

INTRODUCTION: Stigma is one of the main factors hindering help-seeking, which can have debilitating effects on mental health and even lead to suicidality. Stigma can affect the general public but also mental health professionals. In this study we examined mental-illness and help-seeking self-stigma...

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Autores principales: Roškar, S, Kralj, D, Andriessen, K, Krysinska, K, Vinko, M, Podlesek, A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9594699/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckac129.530
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author Roškar, S
Kralj, D
Andriessen, K
Krysinska, K
Vinko, M
Podlesek, A
author_facet Roškar, S
Kralj, D
Andriessen, K
Krysinska, K
Vinko, M
Podlesek, A
author_sort Roškar, S
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Stigma is one of the main factors hindering help-seeking, which can have debilitating effects on mental health and even lead to suicidality. Stigma can affect the general public but also mental health professionals. In this study we examined mental-illness and help-seeking self-stigma as well as public stigma of suicidal behavior among suicidologists. METHODS: Invitation to participate in the study was sent to 518 member of the Internat.l Assoc. for Suicide Prevention. 89 participants (55 female, 34 male; 17% response rate) completed the survey. We gathered sociodemographic data, data on personal history of mental illness and suicidal behavior and on different types of stigma. We hypothesized that help-seeking self-stigma is predicted by sociodemographic attributes and personal history of mental illness and that self-stigma related to mental illness and suicide act as mediators. RESULTS: Personal experience with mental illness predicted mental illness self-stigma. There was no significant predictive value of other variables (age, gender, years working in suicidology) for self-stigma of mental illness and suicide behavior. Both types of self-stigma (mental illness and suicide behavior) were correlated. Mental-illness self-stigma was shown to be a stronger predictor of help-seeking self-stigma than self-stigma of suicide behavior, though the effect did not reach statistical significance. Self-stigma of suicide behavior showed no independent contribution to help-seeking self-stigma. CONCLUSIONS: Mental healthcare professionals represent a particularly vulnerable group for developing mental health issues and suicidality. However, due to fear of being perceived less competent by colleagues and the public, they often disguise their mental struggles and are reluctant to seek help. These pilot findings warrant further research to better understand self-stigma and its impact on help-seeking behavior in order to prevent suicidality in this population.
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spelling pubmed-95946992022-11-22 Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals Roškar, S Kralj, D Andriessen, K Krysinska, K Vinko, M Podlesek, A Eur J Public Health Parallel Programme INTRODUCTION: Stigma is one of the main factors hindering help-seeking, which can have debilitating effects on mental health and even lead to suicidality. Stigma can affect the general public but also mental health professionals. In this study we examined mental-illness and help-seeking self-stigma as well as public stigma of suicidal behavior among suicidologists. METHODS: Invitation to participate in the study was sent to 518 member of the Internat.l Assoc. for Suicide Prevention. 89 participants (55 female, 34 male; 17% response rate) completed the survey. We gathered sociodemographic data, data on personal history of mental illness and suicidal behavior and on different types of stigma. We hypothesized that help-seeking self-stigma is predicted by sociodemographic attributes and personal history of mental illness and that self-stigma related to mental illness and suicide act as mediators. RESULTS: Personal experience with mental illness predicted mental illness self-stigma. There was no significant predictive value of other variables (age, gender, years working in suicidology) for self-stigma of mental illness and suicide behavior. Both types of self-stigma (mental illness and suicide behavior) were correlated. Mental-illness self-stigma was shown to be a stronger predictor of help-seeking self-stigma than self-stigma of suicide behavior, though the effect did not reach statistical significance. Self-stigma of suicide behavior showed no independent contribution to help-seeking self-stigma. CONCLUSIONS: Mental healthcare professionals represent a particularly vulnerable group for developing mental health issues and suicidality. However, due to fear of being perceived less competent by colleagues and the public, they often disguise their mental struggles and are reluctant to seek help. These pilot findings warrant further research to better understand self-stigma and its impact on help-seeking behavior in order to prevent suicidality in this population. Oxford University Press 2022-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9594699/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckac129.530 Text en © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Parallel Programme
Roškar, S
Kralj, D
Andriessen, K
Krysinska, K
Vinko, M
Podlesek, A
Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
title Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
title_full Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
title_fullStr Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
title_full_unstemmed Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
title_short Self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
title_sort self-stigma in suicide prevention of mental health professionals
topic Parallel Programme
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9594699/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckac129.530
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