Attitudes towards Schizophrenia and psychopharmaka among the public an strategic occupational groups in Austria

In contrast to former investigations we had in Austria no topical studies concerning the attitudes towards people suffering from schizophrenia, although knowledge of the attitudes of the public is essential in the ongoing process of deinstitutionalisation. In 1998 an extensive study to investigate the attitudes of the public in Austria towards people suffering from schizophrenia and towards psychopharmaca had been conducted. A representative sample of 1042 people over 16 years had been interviewed face to face. The aims of the study were first to identify the different aspects of the attitudes, second to find factors influencing these attitudes - especially the willingness to contact people suffering from schizophrenia - and third to get information, how to reduce stigma and discrimination. In this study we used four different vignettes to describe schizophrenia, varying gender and type of schizophrenia (positive, negative symptoms). Results show, that the willingness to contacts depends strong from the situation of the interaction. People suffering from schizophrenia are avoided in the immediate personal vicinity, but are accepted in the neighbourhood. Further analysis allow to identify central influencing factors. Social distance is influenced by the perceived dangerousness of people suffering from schizophrenia, from the perceived treatment success of the illness schizophrenia, from the causal of schizophrenia and to a small part from the social background of the respondents. If we consider, that only a minority of the respondents know people suffering from schizophrenia personally and that most information is got from mass media, these results emphasises the importance of the ways and mechanisms how labelling works and stigmatisation can be reduced.