Survey: Most See Stigma in Mental Illness

Seventy-two percent of British adults think there is a stigma associated with having a mental illness, a study found.

Seventy-nine percent said the mentally ill are unpredictable, while 50 percent described the mentally ill as dangerous and 49 percent used the word scary in responding to a survey of 998 people over age 16 by GfK NOP Omnibus.

The survey was conducted for The Priory Group, a European provider of psychiatric services.

The survey found that 57 percent said all aspects of their lives would be negatively affected if they were diagnosed with a mental illness; 76 percent said they would feel upset if they were diagnosed with a serious mental illness; and 69 percent said they would feel fearful about the future.

However, 65 percent described people with a mental illness as intelligent and 63 percent said mentally ill people are kind — while 76 percent said they did not think mental illness was the result of some type of personal weakness.

Psychiatric patients said they feel they are blamed for their illness in a way that other patients — say those who require orthopedic surgery — are not, said Dr. Natasha Bijlani, a psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital Roehampton in London.