The Impact of Treatment Interventions on Mental Illness Stigma

The impact of treatment interventions on mental illness stigma

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Evidence-Based Intervention

 Mental illness stigma is one of the greatest barriers to the improvement of lives of individuals and families of those who suffer from mental disorder. This problem has been noted to carry devastating consequences such as poor mental health seeking behavior, problem in finding employment and housing, withdrawal from social activities, and an overall poor quality of life with those who suffer from mental illness. However, through the review of literature research studies the anti-stigma programs focused on public awareness through educational interventions were effective in reducing mental illness stigma. These interventions were also found to improve help-seeking behavior among mentally ill persons and increased knowledge to the about general public about the disorder. Programs such as Open the Doors, adopted by several countries including the U.S, is an example of the educational intervention that have been found to be effective in reducing mental illness stigma globally. In this section of the paper, discussion will focus on the proposed educational intervention targeting public awareness implemented by the PMHNP to help reduce mental illness stigma in a local community church.  

The educational intervention creates public awareness on the mental illness by targeting members in the local areas that are heavily populated and also in multi-racial church in Riverside California. On the theory of Community Empowerment three different phases are involved.

This educational intervention targeting public awareness of mental illness of the members in the local, heavily populated, multi-racial church here in Riverside California, will compose of three different phases based on the Theory of Community Empowerment. These phases will include involvement, reciprocal health and lay-worker, and (Liehr, & Smith, 2003). This local church community was selected for anti-stigma educational intervention for the following reasons: the members consisted of population of all ages, and they are from all works of life including teachers, students, other health professionals, business owners, employers, landlords, policy makers, community leaders, as well as general members of the population.

According to a research study by Rosen et al.(2008)reviewed above, the impact of lack of knowledge about mental illness has led to high degree of secrecy of the illness among members in religious organizations and results in barrier to early help-seeking from mental health professionals. Hence, as seen in the research study Griffiths et al. (2014), tailoring an educational intervention towards this particular church community would increase knowledge about the disorder, as well as improving attitudes of members of this church community toward individuals and families with mental illness.