ПРОУЧВАНЕ НА АСОЦИИРАНА И СЕМЕЙНА СТИГМА В СЕМЕЙСТВА НА ХОРА С ПСИХИЧНИ ЗАБОЛЯВАНИЯ - В ПОМОЩ НА ОБЩОПРАКТИКУВАЩИТЕ ЛЕКАРИ И ТЕХНИТЕ ПАЦИЕНТИ. (Bulgarian)

ASSOCIATIVE AND FAMILY STIGMA RESEARCH IN PEOPLE WITH PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS - IN BENEFIT OF THE GENERAL PRACTITIONERS AND THEIR PATIENTS. (English)

Coping with the stigma of psychiatric illness is a contemporary problem and it is related not only to the patients, their relatives, the general practitioners and the medical staff working in the mental health system, but also to the whole society. The fears that accompany the psychiatric diagnose are highly connected with rejection of the surrounding environment - family, work or society - as the sense of belonging to a concrete social group is an important condition for integration and successful functioning in life. The process, through which one person is being stigmatized by his connection to an individual who is already stigmatized, is called associative stigma. The aim of the following research is to provide current information about the level of the participants' awareness and opinions on psychiatric disorders, psychiatric healthcare and the medical staff working in the mental healthcare system. This information is essential especially for the general practitioners as they are the first specialists which the patients meet when they look for help. Method: For the sake of the research a questionnaire with 25 questions has been constructed. Overall 238 people participated (6 invalid), 75 of them had a close relative with a psychiatric illness and 154 did not have such. The results of the survey do not show statistically meaningful differences in the opinions of the 2 groups. Nonetheless, there are significant differences in some answers, related to the participants' recommendations considering the psychiatric healthcare, the need of clinical follow-up and regular psychiatric examinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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