IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v53y2007i2p159-174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Community Attitudes Towards Discriminatory Practice Against People with Severe Mental Illness in Hong Kong

Author

Listed:
  • Marcus Y.L. Chiu

    (Department of Social Work, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong; mchiu@hkbu.edu.hk)

  • Kenneth K.L. Chan

    (Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Abstract

Background: The existing literature on community attitudes towards people with severe mental illness (SMI) tends to be rather general and impressionistic, with apparently conflicting findings which have yet to be adequately understood. Aims: This article undertakes to examine the community's level of tolerance towards discriminatory practice against people with SMI in three domains: family relations, employment and health care. Methods: Structured interviews with a representative sample of 507 citizens were carried out using the computer-assisted telephone interview system (CATI). Results: Our survey reveals some expected common misunderstandings about mental illness, with the older age group showing the greatest toleration towards discrimination. However, respondents showed a strong objection to discriminatory behaviour which people with SMI commonly face in health care and employment, whereas greater toleration towards discrimination was found in the family domain. Conclusions: The coexistence of misunderstandings about mental illness and public rejection of discriminatory practice against people with SMI suggests that community attitudes are multi-dimensional and more amendable than expected. The findings of this study call for target-specific educational strategies for community education, as well as accompanying policy initiatives to end discriminatory practice, if people with SMI are to be truly taken as our fellow citizens.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcus Y.L. Chiu & Kenneth K.L. Chan, 2007. "Community Attitudes Towards Discriminatory Practice Against People with Severe Mental Illness in Hong Kong," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 53(2), pages 159-174, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:53:y:2007:i:2:p:159-174
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764006074556
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764006074556
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764006074556?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kee-Lee Chou & Ki-Yan Mak & Po-Kin Chung & David Chan & Kimmy Ho, 1996. "Attitudes Towards Mental Patients in Hong Kong," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 42(3), pages 213-219, September.
    2. Li-Yu Song & Ly-Yun Chang & Chaiw-Yi Shih & Chih-Yuan Lin & Ming-Jeng Yang, 2005. "Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill: The Results of a National Survey of the Taiwanese Population," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 51(2), pages 162-176, June.
    3. Markku Ojanen, 1992. "Attitudes Towards Mental Patients," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 38(2), pages 120-130, June.
    4. Albrecht, Gary L. & Walker, Vivian G. & Levy, Judith A., 1982. "Social distance from the stigmatized : A test of two theories," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 16(14), pages 1319-1327, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kee-Lee Chou & Ki-yan Mak, 1998. "Attitudes To Mental Patients Among Hong Kong Chinese: a Trend Study Over Two Years," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 44(3), pages 215-224, September.
    2. Adrian Furnham & Masako Murao, 2000. "A Cross-Cultural Comparison of British and Japanese Lay Theories of Schizophrenia," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 46(1), pages 4-20, March.
    3. Kee-Lee Chou & Ki-Yan Mak & Po-Kin Chung & David Chan & Kimmy Ho, 1996. "Attitudes Towards Mental Patients in Hong Kong," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 42(3), pages 213-219, September.
    4. Adrian Furnham, 2009. "Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Literacy: Attitudes To, and Knowledge of, Psychotherapy," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 55(6), pages 525-537, November.
    5. Samir Al-Adawi & Atsu S.S. Dorvlo & Suad S. Al-Ismaily & Dalal A. Al-Ghafry & Balquis Z. Al-Noobi & Ahmed Al-Salmi & David T. Burke & Mrugeshkumar K. Shah & Harith Ghassany & Suma P. Chand, 2002. "Perception of and Attitude towards Mental Illness in Oman," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 48(4), pages 305-317, December.
    6. Dobransky, Kerry, 2009. "The good, the bad, and the severely mentally ill: Official and informal labels as organizational resources in community mental health services," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 722-728, September.
    7. Chi-Hsuan Tsai & Yu-Chen Kao & Yin-Ju Lien, 2020. "The Relationship between Individual-Level and Context-Level Factors and Social Distancing from Patients with Depression in Taiwan: A Multilevel Analysis of National Surveys," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-14, September.
    8. Hsing-Jung Chao & Yin-Ju Lien & Yu-Chen Kao & I-Chuan Tasi & Hui-Shin Lin & Yin-Yi Lien, 2020. "Mental Health Literacy in Healthcare Students: An Expansion of the Mental Health Literacy Scale," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-15, February.
    9. Matthias C. Angermeyer & Herbert Matschinger, 2005. "The Stigma of Mental Illness in Germany: A Trend Analysis," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 51(3), pages 276-284, September.
    10. McIntosh, Alison J., 2020. "The hidden side of travel: Epilepsy and tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Bove, Liliana L. & Pervan, Simon J., 2013. "Stigmatized labour: An overlooked service worker’s stress," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 259-263.
    12. Joshua A Williams & Ni Liu & Khalid Afzal & Brian Cooper & Renslow Sherer & Ivy Morgan & Hongmei Dong, 2014. "Positive attitudes towards psychiatry among Chinese medical students," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(1), pages 21-29, February.
    13. Fan‐Ko Sun & Chun‐Ying Chiang & Yu‐Hua Lin & Tai‐Been Chen, 2014. "Short‐term effects of a suicide education intervention for family caregivers of people who are suicidal," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(1-2), pages 91-102, January.
    14. Petrus Ng & Kai-Fong Chan, 2000. "Sex Differences in Opinion Towards Mental Illness of Secondary School Students in Hong Kong," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 46(2), pages 79-88, June.
    15. Nazan Aydin & Arzu Yigit & Tacettin Inandi & Ismet Kirpinar, 2003. "Attitudes of Hospital Staff Toward Mentally Ill Patients in a Teaching Hospital, Turkey," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 49(1), pages 17-26, March.
    16. Nobles, Jenna & Weintraub, Miranda Ritterman & Adler, Nancy E., 2013. "Subjective socioeconomic status and health: Relationships reconsidered," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 58-66.
    17. Kai Wei & Daniel Jacobson López & Shiyou Wu, 2019. "The Role of Language in Anti-Immigrant Prejudice: What Can We Learn from Immigrants’ Historical Experiences?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-18, March.
    18. Pandey Vibha & Sahoo Saddichha & Ranjeet Kumar, 2008. "Attitudes of Ward Attendants Towards Mental Illness: Comparisons and Predictors," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 54(5), pages 469-478, September.
    19. Marjorie L. Baldwin, 1997. "Can the ADA Achieve its Employment Goals?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 549(1), pages 37-52, January.
    20. Katarína Letovancová & Nadežda KovalÄ Ã­ková & Patricia Dobríková, 2017. "Attitude of society towards people with mental illness: The result of national survey of the Slovak population," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 63(3), pages 255-260, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:53:y:2007:i:2:p:159-174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.