Social Work

Depression and Stigma

Student Name

Institutional Affiliation

Depression is a state of mental illness, which can result in negative perception about an individual having depressing causing stigma as a result. The mental illness makes a person to be perceived to have a trait that is disadvantageous to their personal life. Addressing stigma is dependent on the type of depression the individual is suffering from. Addressing depression will end up controlling stigma as the mental status of the patient changes. The main method of dealing with depression is through regular exercises especially when you have mild depression. Moreover, talking about feelings to friends or relatives might go a long way in addressing depression. In case the mild depression is not improving, counseling might be recommended. In case the state of depression is very severe, antidepressants might be very helpful in controlling the condition. Combined efforts from psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses and occupation therapists might help a great deal providing more specialized counseling and medication.

Various studies have been conducted trying to explain the correlation between stigma and depression. Pyne et. al (2014), conducted a research that concentrated on depression severity by using depressed Veteran subjects using the 9-item Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders depression measures. On the other hand, stigma was measured scaled using the 5-item Stigma for Receiving Psychological Help modified for depression treatment. A correlation analysis indicated that undergoing treatment for depression compared never experiencing depression was associated with significantly higher levels of perceived stigma. Results indicated that greater severity of depression was a strong predictor of perceived stigma.

There are a variety of approaches and strategies that have been suggested as basics to controlling stigma (National Academies of Sciences, 2016). One of the strategies is educational anti-stigma campaign meant to bring about the factual information that will make the people correct their perception about their negative attitudes and beliefs about stigma. This includes presenting the correct information regarding the myth that depressed people are more violent and likely to commit murder. Education intervention indicates that homicide cases are similar for both the stigmatized as well as the general public (National Academies of Sciences, 2016).

Another approach that can be employed is through minimizing the rift between the stigmatized people and those without stigmatized condition. This lack of interaction results in discomfort, fear and distrust. The contact intervention is aimed at the elimination of the rift and reestablishes these relationships with the aim of building connection between the two groups, where the stigmatized can share their story. As a result, self-esteem of the affected individual is boosted, and creates a sense of empowerment (National Academies of Sciences, 2016).

Another important strategy that can be utilized is the use of contact-based peer services. Peers in this case will give their experiences, and at the same time provide nondiscrimination, nonjudgmental services. By so doing, peers can identify the problem and offer a strategy to solve the issue. Peer intervention strikes a balance between the rejections, isolation as well as discrimination as people seek mental treatment over substance use.

More importantly, legal as well as policy interventions should be used to protect stigmatized persons. This policy institutions protect people from discrimination based perceived impairments as opposed to actual facts.

These intervention strategies have been deemed appropriate to regulate and consequently control negative perception about people with stigma. However, the success of the available strategies requires an integrated approach which is not easy to achieve. The relationship of between the different strategies might be difficult to establish without significantly influencing another strategy. Various factors need to be considered while establishing the correlation between depression, and stigmatization but this is not always an easy task.

References

National Academies of Sciences, E. a. (2016). Ending discrimination against people with mental and substance use disorders: The evidence for stigma change. National Academies Press.

Pyne, J. M. (2004). Relationship between perceived stigma and depression severity. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 192(4), 278-283.

You might want to improve your paper by considering the following comments and suggestions:

RESEARCH PAPERRUBRIC: Section I(Problem)

· You might want to examine barriers to mental illnesses including depression rather than the correlation between stigma and depression. Given this context, the stigma may be one of the barriers.

· Re-structure this paper. For example, statistics regarding depression problems regarding your topic factors contributing to depression and/or the resulting problems. Instead, reserve the information regarding interventions for the Literature Review paper assignment.

· Don’t forget to put your name and University of Memphis on your title page rather than Student Name and Institutional Affiliation

· Be sure to put an in-text citation at every sentence whose information came from other scholarly works.

· Use more literature to support your arguments.

· If Pyne was the only author of your source then there is no need to write “et. al” in your sentence. Et. Al is only used if there are multiple authors of your source

· This is a start. I would consider significantly narrowing your topic down to a specific concept. You mentioned addressing depression, but how? In what way? Diversifying your research and investigating other sources could be helpful for this.