IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v53y2007i4p325-332.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stigma and Explanatory Models Among People With Schizophrenia and Their Relatives in Vellore, South India

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Charles

    (Psychiatric Nursing, College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore 632002, India)

  • S.D. Manoranjitham

    (Psychiatric Nursing, College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore 632002, India)

  • K.S. Jacob

    (Psychiatry, Christian Medical College, Vellore 632002 India, ksjacob@cmcvellore.ac.in)

Abstract

Background: Stigma associated with mental illness affects patients and their families. Diverse beliefs about the cause and treatment of schizophrenia are common among patients and their relatives. Aim: To study the association between stigma and beliefs about illness in patients and their relatives. Method: Standard instruments were used to assess beliefs about illness and about stigma among patients with schizophrenia and relatives in Vellore, south India. Results: The majority of the patients and their relatives simultaneously held multiple and contradictory models of illness and its treatment. Stigma among patients with schizophrenia and their relatives is associated with specific beliefs about causes of mental illness. Conclusions: Beliefs may play a role in mitigating or may aggravate the effects of stigma. The cross-sectional study design precludes definitive conclusions on direction of the causal association.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Charles & S.D. Manoranjitham & K.S. Jacob, 2007. "Stigma and Explanatory Models Among People With Schizophrenia and Their Relatives in Vellore, South India," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 53(4), pages 325-332, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:53:y:2007:i:4:p:325-332
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764006074538
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764006074538
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764006074538?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Ravi Shankar & B. Saravanan & K. S. Jacob, 2006. "Explanatory Models of Common Mental Disorders among Traditional Healers and Their Patients in Rural South India," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 52(3), pages 221-233, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Koschorke, Mirja & Padmavati, R. & Kumar, Shuba & Cohen, Alex & Weiss, Helen A. & Chatterjee, Sudipto & Pereira, Jesina & Naik, Smita & John, Sujit & Dabholkar, Hamid & Balaji, Madhumitha & Chavan, An, 2017. "Experiences of stigma and discrimination faced by family caregivers of people with schizophrenia in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 66-77.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kaiser, Bonnie N. & Haroz, Emily E. & Kohrt, Brandon A. & Bolton, Paul A. & Bass, Judith K. & Hinton, Devon E., 2015. "“Thinking too much”: A systematic review of a common idiom of distress," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 170-183.
    2. Deepa S Joy & SD Manoranjitham & P Samuel & KS Jacob, 2017. "Explanatory models and distress in primary caregivers of patients with acute psychotic presentations: A study from South India," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 63(7), pages 563-568, November.
    3. Marta Elliott & Robyn Maitoza & Erik Schwinger, 2012. "Subjective accounts of the causes of mental illness in the USA," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 58(6), pages 562-567, November.
    4. Jerome Wright & Stephanie Common & Felix Kauye & Chikayiko Chiwandira, 2014. "Integrating community mental health within primary care in southern Malawi: A pilot educational intervention to enhance the role of health surveillance assistants," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(2), pages 155-161, March.
    5. Sandeep Grover & Jitender Aneja & Akhilesh Sharma & Rama Malhotra & Sannidhya Varma & Debasish Basu & Ajit Avasthi, 2014. "Explanatory models of somatoform disorder patients attending a psychiatry outpatient clinic: A study from North India," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(5), pages 492-498, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:53:y:2007:i:4:p:325-332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.