ArticleBMC psychology2026
Job-search self-efficacy in unemployed individuals with mental health issues: investigating the role of self-stigma with variable-centered and person-centered approaches.
Article in BMC psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundUnemployed individuals with mental health issues frequently struggle to find re-employment. The relevance of self-stigma, that is, applying public stigma toward mental health issues to oneself, has been under-researched in this context, but might provide valuable insights into why finding re-employment is particularly challenging for these individuals. Drawing on the “why try” effect of self-stigma and the conservation of resources theory, we examined the associations between self-stigma, job-search self-efficacy, and job-search behavior, also considering the role of social inclusion, readiness to find employment, psychological distress, and having a diagnosed mental health condition.
methodsAs part of a wider intervention project, we collected baseline data via standardized questionnaires and structured interviews and applied both variable- and person-centered analysis approaches. Data were provided by 422 unemployed individuals with mental health issues in Germany.
resultsVariable-centered analysis indicated a negative indirect effect of self-stigma on job-search behavior through reduced job-search self-efficacy, supporting a domain-specific “why try” effect. This indirect effect was not conditional on other variables. Readiness to find employment, however, moderated the link between self-stigma and job-search self-efficacy with higher readiness exacerbating the negative association. Person-centered analysis identified four distinct profiles of unemployed individuals with mental health issues: Whereas two profiles showed mostly quantitative differences in the magnitude of the variable scores (i.e., low vs. high levels of self-stigma, psychological distress, and social inclusion), two profiles showed qualitatively distinct combinations of self-stigma and psychological distress. The four profiles also differed regarding job-search self-efficacy levels with more favorable profile compositions showing higher levels as opposed to less favorable profile compositions.
conclusionsOur findings support the relevance of self-stigma for job-search self-efficacy and, indirectly, job search. Implications for research and practice, particularly in terms of possible interventions regarding self-stigma in the context of vocational rehabilitation, are discussed.
trial registrationThe wider intervention project has been registered with the German Clinical Trials Register: DRKS00029002 (registered on 11 May 2022).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.