Psychiatric literacy and personality disorders.

Past literature suggests that mental health literacy among the general public is lamentably poor. The study aimed to examine the effect of demographics, knowledge of psychology and psychiatry, and experience of mental illness as predictors for understanding and recognising personality disorders from vignette descriptions. An opportunistic sample of 187 participants with a mean age of 28 years completed an on-line questionnaire in which they were asked to describe and evaluate vignettes of 10 personality disorders. The results revealed major differences between the personality disorders in terms of recognition, and identification and perceived adjustment. The results showed that those who were female, older and had experienced a mental health problem were more accurate and mental health literate.