PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Personal experience, work seniority improve mental health professionals' outlook

2014-02-05
(Press-News.org) Contact information: Molly McElroy
mollywmc@uw.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
Personal experience, work seniority improve mental health professionals' outlook One might think that after years of seeing people at their worst, mental health workers would harbor negative attitudes about mental illness, perhaps associating people with mental health issues as less competent or dangerous. But a new study suggests the opposite.

In a survey of 731 mental health professionals in Washington state, the more seniority employees had on the job, the more positively they viewed people with mental illness. The survey also linked mental health workers' positive attitudes with having advanced degrees and reporting a mental illness themselves.

"The results suggest that the more exposure you have personally and professionally to mental illness, the more positive attitudes you'll have," said Jennifer Stuber, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor of social work at the University of Washington.

Pervasive, stigmatizing views of people with mental illness can create barriers for their employment, housing, medical treatment and social relationships, wrote Stuber in the study published online in January by Psychiatric Services.

Mental health workers having these biased, denigrating views could set low expectations for improvement for individuals seeking treatment, she said.

The study, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and National Institute of Mental Health, is among the first in the United States to examine attitudes among mental health professionals.

"On one hand, it may be the case that mental health professionals become hardened, because they see people at their worst and become discouraged if treatment is slow," Stuber said. "On the other hand, more experience may make mental health professionals more empathetic to their clients and aware of the possibility of recovery."

Stuber and her research team conducted 30-minute online surveys assessing the perceived competence and dangerousness of individuals with depression and schizophrenia. A sample of mental health professionals – counselors, social workers, psychologists, case managers and others – living in Washington read vignettes portraying people who had symptoms of depression or schizophrenia.

Then the participants answered questions gauging how much distance they would want to keep from the people in the vignettes. Would they want the person as their neighbor, housemate, co-worker or spouse? How likely is the person to be dangerous or make responsible financial or treatment decisions? Such questions are used in other surveys that measure stereotypes and stigmas such as those against people who are gay or use drugs.

Stuber and her colleagues found that mental health workers who had at least a four-year college degree, a job position denoting greater seniority (for example, program manager) and a mental illness themselves had more positive attitudes about people with mental health problems.

"The finding that stands out the most is that almost a third of mental health professionals disclosed that they received a diagnosis of mental illness in the past," Stuber said. "This prior experience was associated with less negative attitudes, which has implications for how we think of the relevance of that experience in recruiting for a mental health workforce."

The researchers compared the findings to attitudes held by non-experts, composed of close to 400 adults taking the biennial national General Social Survey.

Overall, mental health workers held more positive attitudes than did the general public. For instance, 40 percent of mental health providers and 70 percent of the general public indicated they wouldn't want someone with schizophrenia as a co-worker. Similarly, 35 percent of mental health workers and 70 percent of the public considered people with schizophrenia to be dangerous.

"The study shows that even though mental health professionals have by and large more favorable views about mental health patients than the public, stigmatizing attitudes still exist," Stuber said.

For instance, she said, people have persistent misguided beliefs that individuals with schizophrenia are dangerous and prone to violence.

"We know that mental illness alone isn't a predictor of violence. But when combined with alcohol, drugs or abuse, a prior history of violence mental illness can be a contributing factor to violence," Stuber said. "We need to train mental health providers to reject inaccurate public perceptions about people with mental illnesses."

### Co-authors of the paper are Anita Rocha of the UW; Ann Christian of Washington Community Mental Health Council; and Bruce Link of Columbia University.

For more information, contact Stuber at jstuber@uw.edu or 206-616-3874. Link to the study: http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1814533


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Telemedicine can reduce hospitalizations for nursing home residents

2014-02-05
LEBANON, NH (Feb. 4, 2014) – Telemedicine used at nursing homes during hours when doctors are not typically present is a viable way to reduce avoidable ...

New study shows core factors and strategies to turn primary care practices into PCMHs

2014-02-05
BOSTON – (February 4, 2014) – A new study conducted by Robert A. Gabbay, M.D., Ph.D., FACP, Senior Vice-President and Chief Medical Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard ...

NASA satellite catches Australia's newborn Tropical Storm Edna and stubborn Fletcher

2014-02-05
Northeastern Australia has been watching two tropical low pressure areas over the last several days, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured both in one infrared image. Tropical Storm Edna ...

Fruit flies -- fermented-fruit connoisseurs -- are relentless party crashers

2014-02-05
That fruit fly joining you just moments after you poured that first glass of cabernet, has just used its poppy-seed-sized brain to conduct a finely-choreographed search, one that's been described ...

Taking statins to lower cholesterol? New guidelines

2014-02-05
ROCHESTER, Minn. — Feb. 4, 2014 — Clinicians and patients should use shared decision-making to select individualized treatments based on the new guidelines to prevent cardiovascular disease, according to a commentary ...

3D mapping biopsy finds 3x prostate cancer of ultrasound-guided biopsy

2014-02-05
Ultrasound-guided biopsies miss prostate cancers that are detected by the slightly more expensive and slightly more invasive 3D mapping biopsies. For example, in a 2006 study of 180 men diagnosed ...

AGU journal highlights -- Feb. 4, 2014

2014-02-05
The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth (JGR-B), and Paleoceanography. In this release: 1. Canada's ...

New study finds feeling 'in control' can help you live longer

2014-02-05
Do you believe in your own ability to succeed, or do you believe life events are largely beyond your control? Think carefully ...

Good hair day: New technique grows tiny 'hairy' materials at the microscale

2014-02-05
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory attacked a tangled problem by developing a new technique to grow tiny "hairy" materials that assemble themselves ...

Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, February 2014

2014-02-05
ENERGY – LEDs to light UT arena . . . With the installation this month of LED fixtures, the University of Tennessee's Thompson-Boling Arena will become the first major sports ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

PLOS One study: In adolescent lab animals exposed to cocaine, High-Intensity Interval Training boosts aversion to the drug

Scientists identify four ways our bodies respond to COVID-19 vaccines

Stronger together: A new fusion protein boosts cancer immunotherapy

Hidden brain waves as triggers for post-seizure wandering

Music training can help the brain focus

Researcher develop the first hydride ion prototype battery

[Press-News.org] Personal experience, work seniority improve mental health professionals' outlook