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Opinions About Mental Illness Among Adolescents: The Impact of a Mental Health Educational Intervention

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Abstract

Mentally ill people are among the most stigmatized, discriminated against and marginalized society members. The aims of this study were to explore adolescents’ opinions about mental illness and determine whether these change after a mental health educational intervention. Two randomly selected schools took part in this study: one serving as intervention group and one as comparison group. Data were collected from both groups, before and after the intervention, using the Opinion about Mental Illness scale. Social Discrimination decreased significantly at the post-test in both groups. Score on Social Care factor significantly increased in the intervention group, and the overall change from pre-post to post-test period was significantly different between the groups. Social Integration significantly increased in the intervention group. A significant interaction effect was found indicating that the overall change was different between the two study groups. Thus, mental health educational interventions can positively influence the perceptions towards mental illness among adolescents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Evanthia Sakellari & Helena Leino-Kilpi

  2. Department of Public Health and Community Health, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Evanthia Sakellari

  3. Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Andre Sourander

  4. Department of Nursing, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Athena Kalokerinou-Anagnostopoulou

  5. Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland

    Helena Leino-Kilpi

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  1. Evanthia Sakellari
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  2. Andre Sourander
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  3. Athena Kalokerinou-Anagnostopoulou
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Correspondence to Evanthia Sakellari.

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Sakellari, E., Sourander, A., Kalokerinou-Anagnostopoulou, A. et al. Opinions About Mental Illness Among Adolescents: The Impact of a Mental Health Educational Intervention. School Mental Health 8, 268–277 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-015-9159-7

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