Psychology/Child Development

 Introduction

According to Heary et al (2017), stigma has an extensive effect on children and adolescents who have mental health problems. Yet, the field of the developmental science and mental health has not done diligent inquiry and investigation on this topic, and this has made it difficult to adopt measures to address the stigma and meet the development needs of children and adolescents. Children and adolescents with a mental illness feel socially discredited when other people develop a negative feeling about them. They are prejudiced and discriminated and this affects their development in that they fear to disclose their status, they experience unequal treatment, they avoid seeking care support, among other issues of great concern.  In this article, Heary et al (2017)  state that there is a need to propose a theory of prejudice and stereotype in an effort to understand the mental health stigma, and more importantly implement interventions for reducing stigma. Even though the research on mental health stigma is limited, there is evidence that children have a negative attitude towards those with mental illness and they tend to create social distance and peer rejection toward them. The article proposes that the Developmental Inter-group Theory will help understand the developmental origins of stereotypes and prejudice towards children and adolescents with mental illness and the theory will help implement stigma reduction interventions.

Article review

Heary et al (2017) state that current research and studies on mental health stigma have found that children and adolescents aged 12-25 experience negative stereotypes from their peers (Heary et al, 2017).  The researchers have also found that peers believe that children and adolescents with mental illness are ‘weak not sick' and they are more violent.  Children and adolescents with mental health problems experience exclusion and unfair treatment. The peer's impulsive behaviors make the victims of mental illness feel embarrassed and frustrated.  It is also important to note that the stigma varies with respect to the type of diagnosis and personality of the stigmatizer. For example, children and adolescents with depression and psychosis condition are more stigmatized that patients with ADHD. Age is also a factor that affects the rate of stigmatization in that recent research found that older children are stigmatized as ‘weak not sick' than younger children (Heary et al, 2017). The article states that it is important to consider all these factors in order to understand the nature of the problem and help the victims.

Developmental Inter-group Theory

 The development inter-group theory focuses on the emergency of prejudice during childhood and adolescent and in specific, it focuses on cognitive factors, social factors, and cultural factors (Heary et al, 2017). On cognitive factors, the development inter-group theory states that prejudice is influenced by a psychological salience. This means that peers develop negative emotions and negative behavioral responses to patients with mental problems. Peers analyses the behavior descriptions and this influences them to develop negative attitudes (Heary et al, 2017). For example, peers may identify aggressive behaviors and withdrawn behaviors and develop negative responses to these behaviors.  On social factor, the developmental inter-group theory states that peers may develop prejudice and stereotype towards children with mental illness through the influence of society. For example, mental illness labels such as ‘psycho', ‘insane', and other generic labels such as ‘problem child' create shared characteristics in people with a mental disorder (Heary et al, 2017). Note that when peers learn that some children and adolescents have behavioral problems, they develop negative expectations and negative responses and treat them as different.

 Another thing that influences stigmatizing responses is that in providing special assistance to the children with a mental disability,  service providers place the children in different settings and this influences the peer to construct a hypothesis that people with a mental disorder are ‘abnormal' (Heary et al, 2017). The theory states that in social and family settings, family members, teachers, peers and people in the community provides implicit stigma to people with mental illness. Implicit bias means that the community members hold an unconscious belief towards mental illness. In other words, there are hidden biases in the family and society that people associated with mental conditions are not worthy and are helpless (Heary et al, 2017). Note that when children receive these implicit messages, they develop stereotypes and prejudices that affect the victims throughout their life. On cultural factors, the developmental inter-group theory states that group size influences stereotypes and prejudices. For example, minority groups suffer from mental health diffuses and peers refer to these people as weak and damaged. The developmental inter-group theory states that children use these factors to categorize members (Heary et al, 2017). Thus, it is important to understand that environmental experiences and cognitive processes allow children to use the terms ‘Us and Them’ and this leads to segregation in various activities including care and treatment.

 Intervention

 The primary role of the intervention should be to encourage integration between children with mental health problems and those who are mentally fit.  In other words, interventions should focus on promoting healthy peer relationships and this will reduce stigmatization and mental health problems. The authors find that there are no interventions to address mental health stigma in school-age children (Heary et al, 2017). Many interventions have addressed mental health stigma in adults and the researches and studies have proposed education programmes and a contact-based model. The article states that the adults' models only yields greater effects in adults but not in children (Heary et al, 2017). The reason as to why there is lack of intervention to address mental health stigma in children is because the studies lack control group, they use small sample group, they lack follow-up, they lack developmental theory, and the studies have a high risk of bias (Heary et al, 2017). Thus, the article offers recommendations for resolving the issue of stigma and develop beneficial outcomes

 Recommendations

 The literature on adult mental health stigma states that stigma can be classified into different types like  public stigma- negative attitudes from the general public towards a particular group of people with a health condition, and personal stigma-  negative personal beliefs (Heary et al, 2017). There is a dearth of research on all aspects of stigma and especially the self-stigma. The article asserts that it is important to study the components of stigma and the potential consequences and this will help implement an effective intervention to help the victims of stigmatization.  Even though research and studies have researched mental health stigma in adulthood, the findings should not be applied in younger groups in that there is a difference in power and social status between adults and children (Heary et al, 2017). Secondly,   the social context in which the stigma is constructed differs. Thirdly, children and adults have different social and cognitive capabilities that influence them to develop negative attitudes toward social groups. Fourth, adults and children have different developmental needs. Regarding these differences, the article recommends that future research should focus on peer group since recent research has found that children and adolescents are more affected than adults (Heary et al, 2017). Given that the previous research and studies have concentrated on mental health stigma in adults and interventions, the article recommends that future research should develop anti-stigma interventions to help children and adolescents. The article proposes that the developmental inter-group theory should guide the research by providing them with knowledge concerning the salience of mental health, inter-group biases, and the role of cognitive, cultural and community level factors in influencing stigma.

Conclusion

 The article review finds that children and adolescents suffer from mental health problems yet the issue remained under-researched. The article finds that the topic is overlooked due to poor research design. Many studies and researches have concentrated on adults' mental health and the available interventions promote mental health in adults but not in children. The article asserts that future research should apply the developmental inter-group theory which has described factors that influence peers to develop negative prejudice and stereotype toward children with mental health problems. The theory has shed light on the development or the origin of the mental health stigma and it is important to integrate the theory in developmental science. This will help future researchers understand the environmental and developmental factors that influence stigma and as a result, they will develop a testable hypothesis and come up with effective interventions. The article also finds that since mental health stigma occurs between the children and their peers, the interventions should focus on promoting healthy peer relationships and this will reduce stigmatizing attitudes. Thus, intervention should target vulnerable groups such as young people and minority group. There should be community and school-based intervention in order to educate the families, community members, as well as peers about the mental health condition.  

 

Reference

Heary, C., Hennessy, E., Swords, L., & Corrigan, P. (2017). Stigma towards Mental Health Problems

during Childhood and Adolescence: Theory, Research and Intervention Approaches. Journal of

Child & Family Studies, 26(11), 2949–2959. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0829-y