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Measuring Recurring Stigma in the Lives of Individuals with Mental Illness

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Abstract

We present an exploratory factor analysis of the 8-item Daily Indignities of Mental Illness (DIMI) scale, created to measure the detection and perceptions of recurring stigma among individuals with recent psychiatric hospitalizations. Structured in-person interviews were conducted with individuals with recent psychiatric hospitalizations in metropolitan New York. The 8-item DIMI scale’s internal consistency for the sample (n = 65), measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.869. Statistically significantly higher DIMI scale scores were observed among individuals with more than 2 psychotic episodes and those reporting seeing relatives less often after hospitalization. The DIMI scale possesses good internal consistency for research contextualizing perceptions around the occurrence or recurrence of mental illness-related stigma among individuals with recent psychiatric hospitalizations.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the study participants and their mental healthcare providers for their commitment to this study. We also wish to thank the field and study staff for their hard work and dedication to the research being undertaken in this study.

Funding

The data collection and research carried out for this manuscript was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH74996) and by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program at Columbia University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, 1126 E 59th St., Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Jerel M. Ezell

  2. Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA

    Chien-Wen Jean Choi

  3. Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Melanie M. Wall

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Melanie M. Wall

  5. Department of Sociology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Bruce G. Link

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  1. Jerel M. Ezell
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  2. Chien-Wen Jean Choi
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  3. Melanie M. Wall
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  4. Bruce G. Link
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Ezell, J.M., Choi, CW.J., Wall, M.M. et al. Measuring Recurring Stigma in the Lives of Individuals with Mental Illness. Community Ment Health J 54, 27–32 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-017-0156-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-017-0156-1

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