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Despite the importance of the stigma construct for the rehabilitation of people with severe mental illness, there are still no scales that offer a measurement for public stigma in Spanish with good psychometric properties. The aim of this paper is to refine and improve an existing scale to measure public stigma towards people with severe mental illness among the Spanish population. We also intended to decrease the number of items in order to facilitate its applicability. 402 college students (73% women) responded to the attributional questionnaire (AQ27) in two subsamples. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis with high cutoffs were conducted. The convergent validity with the resource allocation questionnaire was also tested. We have obtained a parsimonious tool, with 14 items and four factors, and some reliable psychometric indexes and convergent validity. The factors obtained were dangerousness-fear, lack of solidarity, coercion and avoidance. These results improve the findings from other studies that try to validate the AQ27 in other languages. We discuss the different factors that should be considered in the estimation of public stigma and the necessity to implement programmes to reduce it to enable recovery. Since the public stigma of mental illness is an obstacle to recovery and rehabilitation, reliable instruments are needed to assess it. A parsimonious instrument in Spanish with good psychometric characteristics for measuring public stigma is obtained. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, a questionnaire of 14 items is obtained. Four factors constitute the instrument: "dangerousness-fear", "coercion", "lack of solidarity", and "avoidance". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible Summary: What is known on the subject?: People with mental health difficulties have poorer physical health than the general population. The stigmatizing attitude of health professionals impacts the quality of care for these people.There is a broad background on the effectiveness of activities based on theoretical training, clinical practices or social contact to improve nursing students' attitudes towards people with mental health difficulties.There is an important need to assess whether the benefits identified in the short term are maintained in the longer term. What does the paper add to existing knowledge?: The positive evolution of attitudes towards mental illness does not last over time.Some students' attitude towards people with a mental health difficulty worsened in the final stage of their training after completing clinical practices. What are the implications for practice?: It is necessary for tutors incorporate an understanding of stigma throughout the degree training and to discuss with the students the emotional aspects experienced during the performance of clinical practices.The design of any anti‐stigma intervention must include the factor of "time". Introduction: The stigma of health professionals is a contributing factor to morbi‐mortality among people with mental health difficulties. There is a lack of research on long‐term outcomes in nursing students. Objective: To identify factors associated with the evolution of stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness in a cohort of students trained in mental health. Method: A prospective observational study of the impact of training in mental health care. Age, gender, stigma, level of previous familiarity with mental illness, self‐education by Internet, academic performance and the place where practicums are conducted were evaluated on three occasions over 15 months. Results: Academic performance, online consultation and the size or origin of the theoretical group were indicators of better attitudes. The positive evolution of attitudes does not last over time. Discussion: Instability over time could be explained by students' experience in the practicum, although the time itself has been identified as a determining factor. Practical implications: Further studies should be promoted in academia to assess the content of mental health training and its influence on the evolution of the stigmatizing attitude. It is also necessary to address stigma in small groups, where students with better academic results lead anti‐stigma activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study analyses the evolution of attitudes of nursing students towards mental health, paying particular attention to the influence of social desirability. Design and Methods: Prospective longitudinal repeated‐measures study in a sample of nursing students who completed the Community Attitudes toward Mental Illness scale and The Social Desirability Scale. Findings: After their training, and after adjusting for social desirability, students of female gender recognized attitudes that foster humanistic values than their male counterparts. However, attitudes of restrictiveness and authoritarianism continued to be manifested significantly when the students themselves had mental health problems (MHPs), had had previous training, or were older. Practice Implications: University courses should continue to foster attitudes of acceptance and destigmatization of people with MHPs, through responses that value authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of the mentally ill people is a challenge across the world, and different professionals, such as doctors, social workers, psychologists, or nurses, take care of this group. Nonetheless, mental health is not a vocational sector preferred by students and professionals of many of these careers. Research has proposed that professional preference for a patient group would be positively influenced by intergroup contact (quantity and quality) and empathy (perspective‐taking), and negatively associated with intergroup anxiety and social distance. However, the evidence testing this proposal was partial and mainly referring to other patient groups such as minorities or immigrants. The major aim of this cross‐sectional study was to clarify two research questions referring to mentally ill persons: Do contact and empathy protect undergraduates from intergroup anxiety and social distance and promote professional preference? Do intergroup anxiety and social distance predict professional preference and mediate the influence of contact and empathy in professional preference? A convenience sample of 409 Social Work undergraduates (81% females) from three Spanish universities completed a questionnaire between February and June 2020. Concerning direct relationships, the structural equation model showed that the quantity of contact only predicted intergroup anxiety negatively; quality of contact and empathy negatively predicted intergroup anxiety and social distance; intergroup anxiety positively predicted social distance; intergroup anxiety and social distance negatively predicted professional preference. Concerning mediated relationships, the influence of quality of contact and empathy on social distance was mediated by intergroup anxiety; social distance mediated the relationship of intergroup anxiety with professional preference; both anxiety and distance mediated the influence of quality of contact and empathy in professional preference. These results encourage interventions aimed at enhancing professional preference for mental illness by improving contact, knowledge, and empathy and reducing stigma in students and workers from diverse mental health careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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