A mental health promotion approach to reducing discrimination about psychosis in teenagers

Aim: To examine the effectiveness of a psychosocial mental health promotion workshop, involving an ex-service-user researcher, in reducing discrimination about psychosis in teenagers.Hypothesis: Pupils in the intervention condition will express less discrimination about a man characterised as having experienced psychosis immediately after the workshop and at follow-up, compared with pupils in the control condition.Method: A cluster randomised trial was carried out in order to take into account the effect of class group. Ninety-two pupils participated at baseline; 43 pupils were exposed to the intervention and 49 pupils formed the control group. Pupils completed demographic information, questions about their familiarity with people with mental health problems and a questionnaire examining discrimination about psychosis.Results: Multi-level modelling was used to analyse the results. Discrimination scores in the intervention group reduced significantly more than the control group immediately after the intervention. This effect was not sustained at 10-week follow-up. Brief qualitative feedback from pupils exposed to the intervention indicated that 70% considered the testimonial from the ex-service-user researcher to be the most useful.Conclusion: A short psychosocial intervention involving a testimonial from an ex-service user can lead to small but significant reductions in teenagers' discrimination about psychosis immediately after the intervention.

目的：检验一个涉及前服务使用者研究人员的社会心理心理健康促进工作坊在减少青少年对精神病的歧视方面的有效性。 假设：与对照组的学生相比，干预组的学生在工作坊结束后以及后续随访时，对一个被描述为患有精神病的人表现出的歧视会更少。 方法：为考虑班级群体的影响，进行了一项整群随机试验。92名学生在基线时参与；43名学生接受干预，49名学生组成对照组。学生完成了人口统计学信息、关于他们对有心理健康问题的人的熟悉程度的问题以及一份检查对精神病歧视的问卷。 结果：采用多层次模型分析结果。干预后，干预组的歧视分数比对照组显著降低得更多。但这种效果在10周的随访中没有持续。接受干预的学生的简短定性反馈表明，70%的人认为前服务使用者研究人员的证词是最有用的。 结论：一项包含前服务使用者证词的短期社会心理干预可以在干预后立即导致青少年对精神病的歧视有小幅但显著的减少。