Recovery From Schizophrenia: Psychiatry And Political Economy

TREATMENT 297other medical disorders and were increasingly positive about general practitioners’capacity to treat the disorder. 87Setting up a local anti-stigma programThe World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Programme to Reduce Stigma andDiscrimination Because of Schizophrenia, which was launched in the late 1990s,has established a simple process for setting up anti-stigma projects in localcommunities worldwide. 88 Using social-marketing principles, the steps in creatinga local program include:• setting up a local action committee;• conducting a local survey of sources of stigma and types of discrimination;• selecting target groups;• choosing messages and media for these target groups;• trying out interventions and testing their impact;• broadening the scale of intervention; and• establishing some permanent changes.The composition of the local action committee is important to the success of alocal anti-stigma campaign. People from relevant advocacy groups can beincluded, along with representatives of potential target groups, such as police andjudges, health professionals, high-school students, school teachers or school boardmembers, and journalists. Consumers and family members are especially valuablegroup members. Members of the action committee have to be willing to devote afair amount of effort and time to the campaign as most of the work is voluntary.It is useful to include on the action committee one or two prominent citizenswith local name recognition. When requesting a meeting with, say, the editorialboard of the local newspaper, the presence of someone of prominence increasesthe impact of the event. A media or public relations professional can also be avaluable committee member. A group of 10 to 20 action committee members ispracticable; if the group is large it is possible to split into smaller task groups todevelop the action plans for the different target groups.After conducting a survey of local consumers, family members and otherconcerned figures, the action committee must select a manageable number oftarget groups—three is a good number. It is not advisable to target the entiregeneral population—to do so would be expensive and unlikely to have ameasurable impact. For each target group the action committee needs to developrealistic goals and objectives. For example, for a group such as high-schoolstudents the goals might be to increase awareness about the stigma of mentalillness, to increase knowledge and understanding about schizophrenia, and toreduce stigmatizing attitudes. Measurable objectives for high-school studentsmight include: