Mental Illness Stigma Expressed by Sonographers Compared to Those Reported by Other Health Professionals

Abstract

Objective:

Sonographers may frequently encounter patients suffering with mental illnesses (MIs). Stigma toward patients with MI has been documented among various health care professionals with associated negative impacts, on patient care. Research has not been conducted with sonographers to assess their attitudes toward patients with MI. It was hypothesized that stigma would be present, among sonographers who completed the surveys, equal to those expressed by other health care professionals.

Materials and Methods:

A cross-sectional study, using demographic, professional information, and 2 measures of stigma toward people with MI, was conducted to understand how sonographers might experience MI stigma compared to other health care professionals. A cohort (N = 183) of sonographers were given the Attribution Questionnaire (AQ-27) and the Mental Illness Clinician’s Attitude (MICA) Scale. Multiple 1-sample t-tests compared sonographer stigma with other health care professionals’ attitudes, based on peer-reviewed, published studies that used similar stigma measures.

Results:

Sonographers in this study demonstrated significantly less MI stigma compared to other health professionals, based on 24 of the 32 t-tests (75%) conducted.

Conclusion:

The findings of this research can help guide the development of educational interventions in preservice and postservice settings to address MI stigma and could improve the likelihood that patients with MI, receive appropriate sonographic examinations.