Negative public attitudes toward people with psychiatric disorders undermine the treatment and recovery of these individuals. These negative attitudes often reflect limited knowledge or misunderstanding of mental Illnesses. For this reason, mental health advocacy groups have been increasingly active in developing education programs to better inform the public about mental illnesses. Most of these programs have been directed toward adult audiences. It is likely, however, that the negative attitudes of adults have their roots in childhood experience, and many mental health advocates have turned their attention to the education of children about mental illnesses. There has been relatively little assessment of the effectiveness of these efforts to educate children about mental illnesses. To address this deficiency, the effectiveness of a widely- used children's education curriculum-Breaking the Silence (BTS)-will be evaluated for its impact on the knowledge and attitudes of children to whom the educational program is delivered. Instruments for measurement of children's knowledge, attitudes, and behavior toward people with mental illnesses will be developed, pilot tested, and revised. Then four middle school classes will receive the BTS program while a similar number of classes from the same schools will have only their regular curriculum. Measures of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior will be administered to both groups immediately before and after the BTS program is provided, with an additional follow-up 1-2 months after the completion of the BTS program. The research will be conducted over a two-year period. Results will provide valuable information as to whether the BTS program is effective in achieving its goals of increasing knowledge of mental illnesses and reducing stigma, as well as provide data that may lead to program revision and increased effectiveness. This, in turn, may help to reduce the burden that those with mental illnesses face, both as children and as adults. The study will also provide needed measures of attitudes appropriate to youth that may be useful to other investigators. ? ? ?
| Wahl, Otto; Susin, Janet; Lax, Amy et al. (2012) Knowledge and attitudes about mental illness: a survey of middle school students. Psychiatr Serv 63:649-54 |
| Wahl, Otto F; Susin, Janet; Kaplan, Lorraine et al. (2011) Changing Knowledge and Attitudes with a Middle School Mental Health Education Curriculum. Stigma Res Action 1:44-53 |
