ArticleBMC psychiatry2015
Stigmatising attitudes of undergraduates towards their peers with depression: a cross-sectional study in Sri Lanka.
Article in BMC psychiatry, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in Attitudes toward Mental Illness in Healthcare Professionals and Students.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Trial
- Examining psychometric properties of the Sinhala version of the 'Opening Minds Scale for Health Care Providers' to measure stigma towards mental illness using confirmatory factor analysis.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- Effectiveness and types of interventions to reduce mental illness-related stigma among Medical university students: A literature review (1997-2020).Actas espanolas de psiquiatria · 2022Review
- Stigma toward mental and physical illness: attitudes of healthcare professionals, healthcare students and the general public in Pakistan.BJPsych open · 2020Article
- The prevalence and associated factors of depression among medical students of Saudi Arabia: A systematic review.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2020Review
- Evaluation of perceptions and knowledge of mental illness in the United States through crowdsourcing.The mental health clinician · 2018Article
- Predicting intentions to seek help for depression among undergraduates in Sri Lanka.BMC psychiatry · 2018Article
- Stigma towards people with mental disorders and its components - a perspective from multi-ethnic Singapore.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2017Article
- Helping intentions of undergraduates towards their depressed peers: a cross-sectional study in Sri Lanka.BMC psychiatry · 2017Article
- Quantifying and predicting depression literacy of undergraduates: a cross sectional study in Sri Lanka.BMC psychiatry · 2015Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThere is limited research examining mental health-related stigma of undergraduates in non-western developing countries. This study examined stigma of undergraduates in Sri Lanka towards another depressed undergraduate.
methodsA hypothetical vignette of an undergraduate suffering from depression was presented. A total of 4650 undergraduates responded to scales assessing their personal stigma towards and desire for social distance from this individual. Exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) was performed to determine the dimensionality and loading pattern of the items on these two stigma scales. Multiple linear regressions were used to explore correlates of the identified dimensions of stigma.
resultsPrevious findings that the Social Distance Scale forms a single dimension and that the Personal Stigma Scale consists of two dimensions were supported. However, the measurement structure of the dimensions of stigma on the latter scales, labelled 'Weak-not-Sick' and 'Dangerous-Undesirable' , differed from previous work. A high level of stigma in relation to the 'Weak-not-Sick' Scale was observed. However, some correlates associated with lower levels of stigma on this scale, such as being in the Medical Faculty, were associated with higher levels of stigma on the 'Dangerous-Undesirable' and 'Social Distance' scales. In contrast, labelling the problem as a mental health-related problem, with absence of specific psychiatric terminology, was associated with lower levels of stigma on these latter two scales. Exposure to a mental health problem in family or friends or from personal experience was also associated with lower stigma on the Social Distance Scale. However, the effect sizes of these relationships were small.
conclusionsThe findings highlight differences in the measurement structure and score distribution of the 'Weak-not-Sick' and 'Dangerous-Undesirable' scales when used in different cultural and demographic contexts. The dimensionality of stigma relevant to these scales must always be established prior to their use in different contexts. Furthermore, campaigns targeted at improving knowledge about depression as a real illness and as a psychiatric condition need to ensure that such attempts are not associated with increases in other aspects of stigma.
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