The British Journal of Psychiatry (2007) 190: 248-254. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.106.024638
© 2007 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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The Stigma Scale: development of a standardised measure of the stigma of mental illness

Michael King, PhD and Sokratis Dinos, PhD

Department of Mental Health Sciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London

Jenifer Shaw, Robert Watson and Scott Stevens

Camden Mental Health Consortium, London

Filippo Passetti, PhD

Department of Mental Health Sciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London

Scott Weich, PhD

Health Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, Coventry

Marc Serfaty, MD

Department of Mental Health Sciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London, UK

Correspondence: Professor Michael King, Department of Mental Health Sciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, Rowland Hill Street, London NW3 4QP, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 7830 2397; email: m.king{at}medsch.ucl.ac.uk

Declaration of interest None.

Background There is concern about the stigma of mental illness, but it is difficult to measure stigma consistently.

Aims To develop a standardised instrument to measure the stigma of mental illness.

Method We used qualitative data from interviews with mental health service users to develop a pilot scale with 42 items. We recruited 193 service users in order to standardise the scale. Of these, 93 were asked to complete the questionnaire twice, 2 weeks apart, of whom 60 (65%) did so. Items with a test–retest reliability kappa coefficient of 0.4 or greater were retained and subjected to common factor analysis.

Results The final 28-item stigma scale has a three-factor structure: the first concerns discrimination, the second disclosure and the third potential positive aspects of mental illness. Stigma scale scores were negatively correlated with global self-esteem.

Conclusions This self-report questionnaire, which can be completed in 5–10 min, may help us understand more about the role of stigma of psychiatric illness in research and clinical settings.


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eLetters:

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From Perception to Reality, what are you measuring?
Rahman Haghighat
BJP Online, 24 Apr 2007 [Full text]
The Stigma Scale - authors' reply
Michael B King, et al.
BJP Online, 27 Jun 2007 [Full text]
There is More to Stigmatization
Rahman Haghighat
BJP Online, 7 Sep 2007 [Full text]