Factors Affecting a Stigma That is Experienced by Outpatients with Schizophrenia

Kang, Seung Kee; Kim, Chul Kwon

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
To identify various factors that might affect stigmas affecting outpatients with schizophrenia, and to further clarify the effects of both factors affected by the treatment and other factors on stigmas in a clinical setting.
METHODS
Of patients who had been receiving outpatient treatments at the Donga University Hospital Department of Psychiatry and those who had been attending the community mental health center and community psychiatric rehabilitation center, 178 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia with stable symptoms were enrolled in this study. In these patients, through an interview or self-reporting, we assessed stigmas (the Korean version of Mental Health Consumers' Experience of Stigmas), psychiatric symptoms (the Korean version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale), social functions (the Korean version of the Social Functioning Scale), insight (the Self-Appraisal of Illness Questionnaire), empowerment (a Consumer-Constructed Empowerment Scale), and self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale). In more detail, we performed an ANOVA in consideration of 11 factors (age, gender, the level of education, economic status, the duration of disease, the frequency of hospitalization, symptoms, insight, self-esteem, empowerment, and social functions) as explanatory variables for stigmas.
RESULTS
On a multiple regression analysis using backward elimination, the following five factors were found to be significant explanatory variables for stigmas that are experienced by outpatients with schizophrenia : the disease of duration, self-esteem, insight, age, and gender. The coefficient of determination for these five explanatory variables was 0.44.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our results showed that five factors were found to be significant explanatory variables for stigmas that are experienced by outpatients with schizophrenia. These five factors were the duration of the disease, self-esteem, insight, age, and gender. Because these five variables accounted for only 44% of total stigmas, however, further studies in a larger group of patients are warranted to identify other factors that might affect stigmas.