Internalized stigma with mental illness at jimma universtiy specialized hospital, southwest Ethiopia.

Abstract

Background: - Mental illness is an important determinant of quality of life of individuals. The stigma associated with mental illness can potentially be a reason for lower quality of life among people with mental illness. However, only few studies are available on the effect of stigma on quality of life of people with mental illness in Ethiopia. Objective: - To determine the association between stigma and quality of life among people with mental illness. Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study design was employed. The data were collected by using an interviewer administered questionnaire on a total of 422 psychiatric outpatients. Quality of life was measured using quality of life assessment tool Short Form, Version -2 (SF-36) while self-stigma was measured using Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness(ISMI)Scale which was validated and used in many other similar settings. Study participants were drawn using consecutive sampling method. Data analysis was done by using SPSS version -20. Multiple linear regression was used to test the association between stigma & quality of life, and to control for potential confounders, P-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Result: The prevalence of self-stigma was 26.1%. Regarding QoL of people with mental illness, 50.1% were experiencing lower QoL. As stigma increases by one unit in studied participants of PWMI, quality of life of them decreases by 2.5%.but this association is not significant.( β1=- 0.025,95% C.I :-0.085,0.035). In this study self-stigma and QoL were inversely correlated (r=- 0.032) which indicates stigma worsen QoL of people with mental illness. Conclusion and Recommendation: The results of the this study revealed that, the studied participants had apparently high feeling of self-stigma regarding mental illness associated with lower quality of life. This finding used as the screening internalized stigma by empowering people with mental illness regarding internalized stigma . Over a quarter of persons with mental illness on treatment suffer from low quality of life. This also intern result in improved quality of life among people with mental illness which could be done at clinic by clinician counselors and clinical psychologists by health education, counseling and psycho education