Въпросник за оценка на автостигма на психичната болест
Questionnaire measure of self-stigma of mental illness

Summary/Abstract: The label of mental illness has long been recognized as one of the most powerful of all stigmas. The article presents the results of a study of scale structure and psychometric properties of a new instrument for evaluation of the self-stigma of mental illness, which was developed based on two existing instruments. The pilot version of the questionnaire with a size of 51 items has been piloted on a sample of 262 patients treated in the Psychiatric Clinic, University multiprofile hospital for active treatment “Alexandrovska” and Day hospital at the same clinic. The exploratory factor analysis which was carried out, led to the adoption of a model with 4 factors that explain about 32.50% of the total variation of the items. Factors were interpreted as Alienation (closing the individual himself), Social withdrawal (avoiding people from the community), Discrimination (insulting or condescending attitude of the people in the community) and Resistance to stigma (awareness of one‘s own value). After further analysis of the internal consistency on subscale level, the final version of the questionnaire was reduced to 44 items. The questionnaire has very high psychometric characteristics and can be a useful tool for assessing self-stigma of mental illness. Its use in clinical practice or for research purposes may extend the knowledge of experts on the impact of social stigma on patient behavior with mental health problems, as well as the course of the therapeutic process and recovery.

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