Stigma toward people with severe mental disorder in university students before and after their practicum program in mental health

Abstract

University education affects the attitudes of future professionals toward people with mental illness. To evaluate and compare stigmatizing attitudes of university students from nursing, psychology, and occupational therapy careers toward people with severe mental disorder (SMD), a multisite, nonrandomized, pre–post-test design was used with evaluations before and after a practicum program in mental health. Evaluation was done on a convenience sample of 520 students. The Mental Illness Clinicians’ Attitudes (MIws1CA-4) scale was used to assess attitudes and a mixed linear model was used to compare the pre- and post-test data. Our results show that the practicum was slightly effective at reducing negative attitudes toward people with mental illness. Students’ attitudes changed significantly after the training when considering career and country, although the changes were small. Nursing and psychology, but not occupational therapy, showed decreased stigma. Although nursing decreases negative attitudes in the posttest, it achieves higher scores than other careers. Social science’s professionals are less stigmatizing than health professionals such as nurses, a result that could be associated with the approach used in the training of students. Although the practicum decreases stigma toward people diagnosed with SMD, its effect is reduced; it would be necessary to incorporate more specific actions in order to decrease the stigma further. The negative attitudes that decreased with professional training, particularly, were those related to behaviors in the workplace.