Public Attitudes Toward Schizophrenia

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Research project to identify
Public Attitudes towards Schizophrenia

Abstract
Aims - to investigate the public’s attitudes towards people with schizophrenia in comparison to their attitudes towards people without schizophrenia and to then analyze the results with the support of other studies

Method – A short survey was conducted on 20 participants who were given a questionnaire with a short fictional case study followed by 12 statements that had to be answered on a five point Likert Scale. 10 of those questionnaire had the additional quote ‘Matthew suffers from schizophrenia’.

Findings – Looking at the median results of this study, it appears that participants did not score the person with schizophrenia much different then the one with. …show more content…

Mental health illnesses can be both short-term and long-term conditions and are split into two main groups- ‘neurotic’ and ‘psychotic’. Being neurotic includes intense varieties of normal emotions, for example anxiety and depression. Being psychotic is considered less common and is described as having symptoms which disturb the perception of reality, such as hallucinations. Mental health illnesses that present with hallucinations include schizophrenia (The Fundamental Facts,2007). In the past, mental health illnesses were not recognised as such but, instead, as demonic possession or witchcraft. People suffering from mental health illnesses would often be forcibly separated from their families and community resulting in a life of solitude. Worse yet, they were often subjected to harsh unscientific treatments and imprisoned in asylums (Student Pulse, 2015). History and the development in care with mentally ill patients like the above has changed people’s perspective and had led to a mostly negative attitude towards people with schizophrenia.
Many studies suggest that people without schizophrenia have a negative attitude/stigma towards those with schizophrenia. These studies have been carried out by different individuals, in many different countries, looking at different parts of the population and their perception of mental illnesses, in particular schizophrenia. …show more content…

All studies conclude that a certain stigma still exists and that the general public should be taught more about mental health issues.

This research was conducted with the aim to investigate the public’s attitudes towards people with schizophrenia in comparison to their attitudes towards people without schizophrenia and to then analyze the results with the support of the studies mentioned above.
As a hypothesis it would have to be stated that there will be a more negative attitude towards people with schizophrenia compared to someone without.

Method
Design – For this study an independent measures design was used where each participant has only been given one out of the two questionnaires to complete. The questionnaire, being the independent variable, was conducted on a fictional case of an individual ‘Matthew’, and was then altered for half of the participants with the statement: “Matthew suffers from schizophrenia”. The answers were collected and tabulated which was the dependent variable in this

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