High school students' attitudes toward stigma in mental illness

The study was conducted to determine attitudes and stigma of high school students towards mental health patients and to investigate the factors that may cause stigma. The research was conducted between 03.02.20 and 12.03.20 in 9 high schools selected from among the high schools in Nilüfer and Yıldırım districts of Bursa province. The sample of the study consisted of 946 students and ''Student Descriptive Information Form'', '' Social Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help '' and ''Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychological Professional Help Scale-Short Form'' were used to data collection. Evaluation of the data and preparation of tables are done by using SPSS 23.0 program. Evaluated results are presented as average and standard deviation. 51.4 % of the participants are women, 48.6% of them are men, 64.5% of them stay in the Nilüfer district, 49.1% of them have a medium income level, and the most common patarnal attitude is protective attitude. 5.1 % of the sample is found to have a psychiatric disorder, 10.2% received psychiatric treatment, 9.4 % has a psychiatric disorder in their family, and 21.7 % has a psychiatric disorder in relatives, friends or neighbors. It was found that there is a significant negative relationship between the total scores of the scales (p<0,001). It has been found that male students have higher perception of social stigma towards seeking help their attitudes towards seeking help are more negative than female students. It seems that the perception of social stigma towards receiving psychological help is higher in those with low income levels, indifferent maternal attitude, psychiatric disorders and psychiatric treatment. It is observed that the attitudes of private high school students, students in Nilüfer district, students who have an indifferent perception of father's attitude, those who receive psychiatric treatment and those with psychiatric disorders in their families have more negative attitudes towards help than other students. As a result; the stigma is caused by the wrong attitudes and beliefs known in the society and the most basic reason is that there is not enough information about stigma in our education and training system. According to these results, it is suggested that fighting stigma by organizing trainings on biases and social stigma about people receiving psychological help can be organized and informing students can be carried out.