Stigma toward the mentally ill in the general hospital: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Stigma associated with mental illness is frequently reported in the community but there is little published information about stigma within general hospitals.
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to describe the experience of stigma in patients and health professionals using a Liaison Psychiatry service in a general hospital.
DESIGN: We used a grounded theory qualitative method to analyze audiotaped interviews of participants.
SETTING: A general hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.
SUBJECTS: Ten participants, five patients and five referrers. MEASUREMENTS: The qualitative method generated various categories that made up the construct of "stigma" in the general hospital.
RESULTS: A central category of "Relating Mind to Matter" was developed and linked to the major categories of "It's a Scary Business," "It's All Hopeless," "She's One of Them," "Expressions of Relatedness," "You are Not Genuinely Ill" and "Playing by the Roles."
CONCLUSION: The presence, or suspicion, of a mental illness in a patient has a negative impact in the general hospital setting. The key experiences are silence, disbelief and invalidation. The category title "Relating Mind to Matter" refers to the tensions in the patient-health professional relationship and to the uncomfortable relationship between the mind and the body.