NCT03656770

Measuring Beliefs and Norms About Persons With Mental Illness

Measuring Beliefs and Norms About Persons With Mental Illness in Rural Uganda: A Randomized Survey Experiment

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 1,782 (actual)
• Sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Survey experiment to estimate drivers of mental illness stigma

Detailed description

Despite significant advances in scientific understanding of brain and substance use disorders accompanied by significant advances in treatment and improvements in prognosis, mental illness remains highly stigmatized throughout the world. Previous studies suggest that portraying mental illness as treatable can reduce negative attitudes toward persons with mental illness. This randomized controlled trial compares the effects of exposing study participants to vignettes portraying persons with untreated and symptomatic mental illness vs. treated mental illness with complete response vs. treated mental illness with relapse. It is hypothesized, based on prior work, that study participants exposed to vignettes depicting treated mental illness with completed response would have the greatest effect on reducing negative attitudes toward persons with mental illness, followed by treated mental illness with relapse and untreated and symptomatic mental illness.

Conditions

• Mental Illness
• Schizophrenia
• Bipolar Disorder
• Depression

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Survey questionnaire	Each version of the questionnaire portrays a young Ugandan woman with different profiles of illness severity, treatment, and treatment response.

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-12-13
• Primary completion: 2018-06-08
• Completion: 2018-06-08
• First posted: 2018-09-04
• Last updated: 2019-08-12

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Uganda