Stigma against Mental Illness and Mental Health: the role of Social Media

  1. Amelia Rizzo
  2. Lorena Calandi
  3. Monica Faranda
  4. Maria Grazia Rosano
  5. Viviana Carlotta
  6. Enrica Vinci

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

In social psychology, prejudice is a negative attitude toward a person belonging to a specific social group or a condition that is assumed negatively influences interpersonal relationships. In social psychiatry, the term stigma refers to a set of negative factors associated with individuals with a mental disorder. Stigma related to mental health issues is prevalent in collective thinking, widespread, and difficult to modify. Common behaviours among people include fear of interacting with individuals with psychological issues due to their perceived unpredictability. Social media platforms play a powerful role in informing, raising awareness, and influencing public perceptions of mental disorders. On the one hand, they provide an unprecedented platform for sharing personal experiences, reducing stigma, and promoting mutual support among individuals facing similar challenges. On the other hand, there is a risk that these platforms can spread misleading information, harmful stereotypes, and sensationalistic or sanitized representations, negatively impacting both public perception and the well-being of affected individuals.

Article activity feed

  1. PREreview

    This Zenodo record is a permanently preserved version of a PREreview. You can view the complete PREreview at https://prereview.org/reviews/13354500.

    Summary:

    This review is the result of a virtual, collaborative live review discussion organized andhosted by PREreview and the Rwanda Preprint Club on Aug 12, 2024. The discussion was joined by 17 people: 2 facilitators and 15 live review participants. The authors of this review have dedicated additional asynchronous time over the course of two weeks to help compose this final report using the notes from the Live Review. We thank all participants who contributed to the discussion and made it possible for us to provide feedback on this preprint.

    Thanks to the authors for putting together this file on Stigma against mental illness and mental health: the role of social media. We applaud you for thinking about this growing global public health concern in our contemporary society. Mental health problems became a serious issue especially post COVID-19 era and widespread communal conflict, where cases of mental illness are on the increase which necessitate the need for appropriate measures to mitigate its effects such as stigmatization. On the other hand, healthcare workers in the field of mental health are equally affected by one form of stigmatization or  the other. We also acknowledge the huge role of social media has played in this, especially that we have been more of virtual people due to isolation and the stigma perpetrated by social media is very influential. As such, we believe curbing this will improve mental health services delivery without stigmatization. However, we feel the paper could sound better if the authors could incorporate the following observations and suggestions. Overall, by clearly specifying the study type, objectives, methods, findings, and conclusion.

    List of major concerns and feedback:

    1. We suggest rewriting the topic using the Population, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome (PICO) format.

    2.  We also think about the literature section and topic should be guided by    Who is the population we are referring to here? Which country/culture/context is this happening? What is the role of healthcare system stigma in the study? What type of mental health disorders are we including here? Which social media platforms are the authors looking at? Who is the audience to which this study is directed? 

    3. Please review the introduction section to capture a clearer background and direction for the study, providing the context and narrowing down along with a clear reason or objective why the research is conducted.

    4. We also feel there is a need to restructure the manuscript into a formal method of scientific writing to include abstract, background, methodology, findings and conclusion.

    5.  We feel in the Stigma and Social Media sections, both viewpoints have been discussed nicely however not there is still a need for data and /or citations to support these viewpoints.

    List of minor concerns and feedback:

    1. We suggest that authors look into whether their citation index follows the standard citation approaches.

    2.  Author may standardize the term used for mental health issues in the study to avoid confusion among readers.

    3. Authors should include a section for operational definitions to communicate the meanings of the terms they used in the paper e.g. what do they mean by mental health vs mental illness.

    4. Authors should try to look at how other authors structured their write-up of similar domain: Naslund JA, Bondre A, Torous J, Aschbrenner KA. Social Media and Mental Health: Benefits, Risks, and Opportunities for Research and Practice. J Technol Behav Sci. 2020 Sep;5(3):245-257. doi: 10.1007/s41347-020-00134-x. Epub 2020 Apr 20. PMID: 33415185; PMCID: PMC7785056. 

    5. Authors should consider a systematic review and/or meta-analysis approach in the future works similar to this one where the study is based on already existing evidence by other researchers. m

    We thank the authors of the preprint for posting their work openly for feedback. We also thank all participants of the Live Review call for their time and for engaging in the lively discussion that generated this review.

    Conflict of Interest

    Daniela Saderi and Vanessa Fairhurst who are PREreview facilitators contributed to this review.

    No other competing interests were declared by the reviewers.

    Competing interests

    The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

  2. Version published to 10.1590/scielopreprints.8985 on SciELO Preprints