Controlled Study of the Impact of a Virtual Program to Reduce Stigma Among University Students Toward People With Mental Disorders
Date
2021
Type:
Article
item.page.extent
item.page.accessRights
item.contributor.advisor
ORCID:
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
item.page.isbn
item.page.issn
item.page.issne
item.page.doiurl
item.page.other
item.page.references
Abstract
Stigma toward mental disorders is one of today’s most pressing global issues.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the barriers to social inclusion faced by
individuals with mental disorders. Concurrently, stigma reduction interventions, especially
those aimed at university students, have been more difficult to implement given
social distancing and campus closures. As a result, alternative delivery for programs
contributing to stigma reduction is required, such as online implementation. This
paper reports the results of a controlled study focused on an online multi-component
program on reducing stigma toward mental illness that included project-based learning,
clinical simulations with standardized patients and E-Contact with real patients. A
total of 40 undergraduate students from the Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago,
Chile, participated in the study. They were randomly divided between an intervention
and control group. The intervention group participated in the online multi-component
program, while the control group participated in an online educational program on
cardiovascular health. We assessed the impact of the program by using the validated
Spanish-language versions of the Attribution Questionnaire AQ-27 and the Questionnaire
on Student Attitudes toward Schizophrenia with both groups, before and after the
intervention. In addition, an ad hoc Likert scale ranging from 0 to 5 was used with the
intervention group in order to assess the learning strategies implemented. Following the
intervention, the participants belonging to the intervention group displayed significantly
lower levels of stereotypes, perception of dangerousness, and global score toward
people with schizophrenia (p < 0.001). In addition, participants presented lower levels of
dangerousness-fear, avoidance, coercion, lack of solidarity, and global score (p < 0.001).
The control group displayed no statistically significant differences in the level of stigma
before and after the evaluation, for all of the items assessed. Finally, the overall
assessment of each of the components of the program was highly positive. In conclusion,
the study shows that online programs can contribute to reducing stigma toward mental
disorders. The program assessed in this study had a positive impact on all the dimensions
of stigma and all of the components of the program itself were positively evaluated by
the participants.
Description
item.page.coverage.spatial
item.page.sponsorship
Citation
Rodríguez-Rivas ME, Cangas AJ and Fuentes-Olavarría D (2021) Controlled Study of the Impact of a Virtual Program to Reduce Stigma Among University Students Toward People With Mental Disorders.
Front. Psychiatry 12:632252. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632252
Keywords
Stigma, Undergraduate education, E-contact, Standardized patient (SP), Project based learning (PBL), Multicomponent interventions, Stigma reduction programme