Stigmamente

StigmaQuest is a mixed-method psychometric test used in social psychiatry and social psychology to study the perception of stigmatization processes.

Stigma is recognized by the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) as one of the three key factors contributing to the failure of medical and therapeutic treatments—both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic—in the context of mental illness. It causes poor treatment compliance and low quality of life, which often lead to faster chronicization. In the case of adolescent patients experiencing a first psychotic episode, feeling labeled and rejecting healthcare services can become decisive negative factors in the natural course of the young patient's condition.

It is a complex, semi-structured, self-administered psychometric questionnaire, typically completed in a supervised setting, designed to assess social distancing attitudes, stereotypes, and prejudices that lead to discrimination and stigma (public stigma) toward mental illness. It is often used in a double assessment format (T0/T1).

The aim is to describe, compare, and explain behaviors, attitudes, normative systems, and beliefs adopted by respondents in relation to prejudice against individuals known to suffer from an unspecified mental disorder. The tool is optimized for investigations in medium-sized groups (n > 49), such as school classes, workgroups, clusters of participants in prevention campaigns (both primary and secondary), and statistically homogeneous populations.

Stigmaquest was conceived in 2005 by the working group of the Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Foggia, in collaboration with AILAS (Italian Association Against Stigma) and the social promotion association Stigmamente – Art, Media, and Psychiatry on Stigma and Diversity.[3] The test was officially presented to the international scientific community of the World Psychiatric Association in 2008 with an initial report involving 450 adolescents and 120 adults.[4] Subsequently, the test was adopted as the official tool for the regional primary prevention campaign on adolescent psychological distress (4,500 participants) by the Regional Health Agency (A.Re.S) of the Apulia Region, which took place from 2009[5] to 2012[6]. In 2017, it was used in the primary prevention project on adolescents (400 participants) IamStigmaFree[7], carried out by the Training and Research Center of the Mental Health Department (DSM) of Lecce and the Italian Society of Social Psychiatry (SIPS).

Further details about the questionnaire

The instrument is calibrated for the entire Italian population, and for three out of four parts (Parts I, II, and III) it is also suitable for the European and Western populations. Standardization is made possible through concordances with:

the work of Heather Stuart (WPA – WHO) for Part I (open-ended questions);
the Haghighat questionnaire (Standardized Stigmatization Questionnaire – SSQ) for Part II (Likert scale), which is itself derived from the now classic studies of Patrick Corrigan;
Part III (adjective attribution table), which draws more on socio-anthropological than medical literature, especially referencing semantic differential studies focused on the categories identified by sociologist Erving Goffman as being most vulnerable to stereotypes—including non-EU immigrants.

Part IV (cluster analysis) focuses on the perception of categories most penalized by mass media.

StigmaQuest can be integrated with the Italian Ministry of Health Survey designed for secondary schools.

References

NORMAN SARTORIUS, WOLFGANG GAEBEL, HELEN-ROSE CLEVELAND, HEATHER STUART, TSUYOSHI AKIYAMA, JULIO ARBOLEDA-FLÓREZ, ANJA E. BAUMANN, OYE GUREJE, MIGUEL R. JORGE, MARIANNE KASTRUP, YURIKO SUZUKI, ALLAN TASMAN10, WPA guidance on how to combat stigmatization of psychiatry and psychiatrists, in World Psychiatry, v.9(3);, 2010 Oct.
the wpa global programme to reduce stigma and discrimination because of schizophrenia (PDF), su open-the-doors.com.
Stigma e discriminazione negli studenti dei CdL in professioni sanitarie: uno studio con lo Stigmaquest - Abstract on Journal of Psychopathology 1/2012 SOPSI ACTS - ISSN: 1592-1107
Bellomo, Nardini, Petito, Ferretti, Starace. Lotta allo stigma percorsi integrativi ed innovativi. Congresso WPA Fiuggi 2008 - Health Policy, Artistic Activity, Ecology, Ethic: new prospectives the Italian Psichiatry
Prevenzione e contrasto dello stigma e della discriminazione legati alla malattia mentale. (10/AP1/05). (Delibera di Giunta Regionale n. 369/06 avente ad oggetto Programma di utilizzo delle quote anno 2005 vincolate agli obiettivi del PNS 2003/2005. Intesa Stato Regioni n. 247 del 9 febbraio 2006° sono stati approvati i Progetti di Piano finanziati con le risorse 2005 e Delibera A.Re.S. Puglia n. 95 del 9 luglio 2009))
"Prevenzione e lotta allo Stigma ed al Pregiudizio nei confronti dei disturbi psichiatrici mediante un intervento psicoeducativo effettuato sulla popolazione scolastica" (Delibera di Giunta Regionale n. 2994/2010 e Delibera A.Re.S. Puglia n. 110 del 30 maggio 2012).
Congresso SIP - Società Italiana di Psichiatria - Sezione Puglia e Basilicata “I distrubi psichiatrici nei giovani. La continuità nell'assistenza e gli interventi precoci" Lecce, 30/31 ottobre 2017 - link al poster https://sippugliabasilicata.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/de-luca-potenza-et-al.pdf
Fighting the stigma caused by mental disorders: past perspectives, present activities, and future directions, su ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
The Development of an Instrument to Measure Stigmatization: factor analysis and origin of stigmatization, su scielo.isciii.es.
A unitary theory of stigmatisation Pursuit of self-interest and routes to destigmatisation. The British Journal of Psychiatry Mar 2001, 178 (3) 207-215; DOI: 10.1192/bjp.178.3.207, su bjp.rcpsych.org.
Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16–20., su ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.