The impact of perceived and internalised stigma on clinical and functional recovery among people with mental illness

The present study aimed to develop and validate a conceptual model linking public and internalised stigma to recovery attitudes, processes and outcomes among people with mental illness. Specifically, we sought to examine whether perceptions of public stigma (i.e., perceived stigma) would affect experiences of internalised stigma (i.e., self-stigma) and thereby influence recovery attitudes (i.e., recovery orientation), recovery processes (i.e., service engagement) and recovery outcomes (i.e., clinical recovery and functional recovery). A total of 205 people with mental illness from Hong Kong, China, completed questionnaire measures on perceived stigma, self-stigma, recovery orientation, service engagement, clinical recovery and functional recovery. The associations among these variables were analysed using path analyses and bootstrap analyses. Path analyses showed that perceived stigma was related to greater self-stigma, which was, in turn, linked to lower recovery orientation and then lesser service engagement and ultimately poorer clinical recovery and functional recovery. Bootstrap analyses further demonstrated that perceived stigma had significant indirect effects on recovery orientation via self-stigma, on service engagement via self-stigma and recovery orientation and on clinical recovery and functional recovery via self-stigma, recovery orientation and service engagement. Theoretically, our findings reveal how public and internalised stigma may adversely affect recovery attitudes, processes and outcomes among people with mental illness. Practically, our findings point to the vital and urgent need to develop effective interventions to mitigate stigma and self-stigma at community and individual levels in order to reduce the deleterious impact of stigma on recovery.