Mental Disorders as Brain Disorders: The Impact on Stigma of an Educational Intervention about Neuroscience Behind Mental Illness

Stigmatization of mental illness is undoubtedly detrimental to those with mental health concerns. In effort to combat the issue of stigma, previous research has evaluated the effectiveness of education as a method to reduce stigma in a college sample; finding that peer-led presentations are effective in reducing stigma (Kosyluk et al., 2016). The current study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of neuroscience education on reducing the stigma of mental illness among college students. Researchers asked 53 Union College students to complete seven-item Social Distance Scale (SDS; Penn et al., 1994) before and after a peer-led, 30 minute educational intervention. Results indicated a significant difference between the means of the pre-intervention (M = 13.70) and post-intervention (M = 11.40) scores such that SDS scores used to indicate stigma level decreased from pre to post intervention (p < .001). The was a moderate effect size for the sample (d  = 0.697). As the current research lacked a control group, the sample was compared to another study which utilized the SDS in a control sample. In said sample, the effect size for the control group indicated a very small effect size (d = 0.04), while the experimental group indicated a large effect size (d= 1.04; Broussard et al., 2011). This data indicates a high test-retest reliability of the SDS and suggests the impact of the neuroscience education created a powerful effect. Additional research and additional stigma measures are required to understand how biological education may be useful in a sample in the broader community.