Date of Conferral
2023
Degree
Ph.D.
School
Human Services
Advisor
Kelly R. Chermack
Abstract
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, over 9 million people in the United States suffer from a mental illness (MI). Although human service professionals seek the best practices to treat people with MI, people with MI sometimes struggle to seek treatment because of stigma. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore the barriers and challenges of human service professionals who experienced using a stigma reduction treatment on a person with MI. The mental illness stigma framework and Goffman’s stigma theory provided the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with eight human service professionals who worked in an outpatient treatment setting. Findings indicated that participants experienced challenges using a stigma reduction intervention due to lack of staffing, which led to improper use of a stigma reduction intervention, and lack of education in which some staff lacked the ability to properly communicate with patients. The barriers experienced were due to poor communication with families and the use of medical interventions in which patients were unable to fully participate with the stigma reduction intervention. Meeting patients where they were seemed to be successful with the use of a stigma reduction intervention. Findings may inform the best practices for positive social change with stigma reduction treatments used on people with MI.
Recommended Citation
Epps, Maureen, "Barriers, Challenges &Successes Among Human Service Professionals Stigma Reduction Treatment Among People With Mental Illness" (2023). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 14689.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/14689
