Examining the Relationships Among Concealment Tendencies, Illness Attitudes, Belief in a Just World, and Cognitive Flexibility

The purpose of this study was to verify the relationships among concealment tendencies, illness attitudes, belief in a just world, and cognitive flexibility. The participants were 418 Korean and 400 Chinese adults. We conducted correlational analysis, structural equation modeling, and verification of mediating effects. We found that cognitive flexibility–control factor fully mediated the relationship between concealment tendencies and illness attitudes for Korean participants and partially mediated the relationship for Chinese participants. The relationship between concealment tendencies and cognitive flexibility–alternatives factor differed across participants’ country of origin. For Chinese participants, cognitive flexibility–alternatives fully mediated the relationship between concealment tendencies and belief in a just world. These differences might stem from the countries’ different social systems, values, and attitudes. Finally, we discuss this study’s implications and limitations.

Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices and Some Characteristic Features of People Recovered from COVID-19 in Turkey

Background and objectives: The whole world is spending an extraordinary effort by implementing various measures to control and prevent the COVID-19 pandemic. The effectiveness of the preventive measures is greatly influenced by the public’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) towards the disease. In this study, KAP values and some characteristic features of people recovered from COVID-19 were determined by conducting a questionnaire survey. Materials and Methods: The questionnaire survey was conducted between 1 and 10 January 2021 on people who recovered from COVID-19 in a total of 150 different locations in Turkey. The questionnaire consisted of 46 questions: 14 for determining demographic and some characteristic features of the participants, and 32 for determining their knowledge, attitudes, and practices. The data obtained were evaluated using descriptive statistics, chi-squared tests, t-tests, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: It was determined that 63% of the participants had at least one chronic illness, 3.9% suffered from the disease twice, and 45.2% changed their smoking habits. The average knowledge score of the participants about COVID-19 was calculated as 10.25 (SD = 2.37; range 0–15). The participants were found to have a high level of knowledge about the symptoms and prevention methods in general, and positive changes in post-illness attitudes and behaviors. However, there was a great instability regarding the drugs and vaccines used in the treatment of COVID-19. Conclusions: This was the first study carried out in Turkey to determine knowledge, attitudes, practices, and some characteristic features of people who recovered from COVID-19. It was suggested that health authorities in the country need to develop more effective strategies and policies to find out permanent solutions in order to control and prevent the COVID-19 pandemic by taking into account the concerns of the public, particularly with regards to the drugs used in the treatment and vaccination.

The impact of lived experience on health care workers' knowledge, attitudes and behaviour regarding mental illness

Background/Aims The literature suggests that many health care workers hold stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness. This study aimed to ascertain information regarding the impact of lived experience on health care workers' knowledge about mental illness, attitudes towards mental illness and intended behaviours towards people who experience mental illness. Methods This quantitative study used a questionnaire survey of health care workers employed in four National Health Service Trusts (n=2073). Statistical analyses were conducted. Results Lived experience of a mental illness (self or family member) was associated with more favourable knowledge about mental illness, attitudes towards mental illness and intended behaviours towards those with a mental illness. Conclusions The lived experience of mental illness among health care workers could be harnessed as a resource to improve service delivery. There should be a long-term commitment to capitalising on the benefit to patient care of lived experience among health care workers.

Changes in newspaper coverage of mental illness from 2008 to 2016 in England

Aims Since 2008 England's anti-stigma programme Time to Change has lobbied media outlets about stigmatising coverage and worked with them to promote accurate and non-stigmatising coverage. While this may have an impact on coverage and hence attitudes, it is also possible that coverage can change in response to improving attitudes, through the creation of a market demand for less stigmatising coverage. This study evaluates English newspaper coverage of mental health topics between 2008 and 2016. Method Articles covering mental health in 27 newspapers were retrieved using keyword searches on two randomly chosen days each month in 2008–2016, excluding 2012 and 2015 due to restricted resources. Content analysis used a structured coding framework. Univariate logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds of each hypothesised element occurring in 2016 compared with 2008 and Wald tests to assess the overall statistical significance of the year variable as the predictor. Results The sample retrieved almost doubled between 2008 (n = 882) and 2016 (n = 1738). We found a significant increase in the proportion of anti-stigmatising articles (odds ratio (OR) 2.26 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.86–2.74)) and a significant decrease in stigmatising articles (OR 0.62 (95% CI 0.51–0.75)). Reports on all diagnoses except for schizophrenia were more often anti-stigmatising than stigmatising. Conclusions This is the first clear evidence of improvement in coverage since the start of Time to Change. However, coverage of schizophrenia may be less affected by this positive shift than that of other diagnoses. The increase in the level of coverage identified in 2016 requires further investigation, as it may also influence public conceptualisation of what constitutes mental illness, attitudes to mental illness in general and/or specific diagnoses. While most anti-stigma programmes are not diagnosis specific, we suggest their evaluation would benefit from a diagnosis specific approach to allow fuller interpretation of their effects. This could include media analysis driven by hypotheses based on diagnoses to ascertain whether variations by diagnosis over time occur both in the nature and in the proportion of coverage.