Georg Schomerus|Susanne Stolzenburg|Simone Freitag|Sven Speerforck|Deborah Janowitz|Sara Evans?Lacko|Holger Muehlan|Silke Schmidt
Stigma as a barrier to recognizing personal mental illness and seeking help: a prospective study among untreated persons with mental illness
Greifswald University Hospital|Greifswald University Hospital|Greifswald University Hospital|Greifswald University Hospital|Greifswald University Hospital|London School of Economics and Political Science|Greifswald University Hospital|Greifswald University Hospital
unclear extent failure recognize symptoms potential sign mental illness impeding service use stigmatizing attitudes interfere process prospective study followed community sample 188 currently untreated persons mental illness predominantly depression 6 months examined lack knowledge prejudice discrimination impacted selfidentification mental illness perceived need intention seek help helpseeking respect primary care visiting general practitioner gp specialist care seeing mental health professional mhp 67 sought professional help within 6 months fully saturated path models accounting baseline depressive symptoms previous treatment experience age gender showed selfidentification predicted need beta 032 p 0001 need predicted intention gp beta 045 p 0001 mhp beta 038 p 0001 intention predicted service use mhp 6 months beta 031 p 001 gp beta 017 p 0093 knowledge associated selfidentification beta 021 p 001 support discrimination associated lower selfidentification beta 014 p 005 blaming persons mental illness problem associated lower perceived need beta 016 p 005 models explained 37 variance seeking help mhp 33 helpseeking gp recognizing ones mental illness perceiving need help impaired lack knowledge prejudice discrimination selfidentification relevant first step seeking help mental disorders