3 - (IOP 2) Destigmatizing Psychosis in Undergraduate Curricula by Fostering Inclusivity: “I Thought I Heard My Name”

Stigma and inclusivity operate together and a reduction in stigma will foster inclusivity for people with psychosis, a highly marginalized group of individuals. Psychosis is stigmatized in general and even within the psychological profession (Treichler & Jones, 2023). There is a lack of emphasis on stigma reduction in undergraduate (Becker et al., 2023) and graduate psychology training, especially in recovery-oriented models (O’Connor & Yannos, 2023). Stigma limits the growth of the workforce to provide recovery-oriented, CBT for psychosis and delays service-seeking by people with psychosis. This presentation describes a class aimed at destigmatizing psychosis, early in undergraduates’ educational careers.

Our class introduced psychosis as a spectrum of experiences, highlighted progress made in treatment (e.g., CBT for psychosis), incorporated people with lived experience as presenters and partners, exposed students to psychosis experts in various professions, and tasked them with developing a project towards destigmatizing psychosis in their community of choice. Pre and post surveys to assess stigma were conducted using the following measures: Perceived Devaluation-Discrimination Scale (PDDS) (Link, 1987), Day’s Mental Illness Stigma Scale (DMISS) (Day, 2007), and the Psychosis Attitudes Scale (PAS) (Sivec et al, 2020).

Data represents two classes, across two semesters. Weighted total scores for each response were calculated. Independent samples t-tests were conducted for each measure and statistically significant reductions in stigma were found for DMISS [Pre: M= 56.49, SD=20.56; Post: M=32.04 , SD=22.99, t(64) = 4.53, p < 0.0001], with a large effect size d = 1.12; and PAS [Pre: M=-8.11, SD=11.32; Post: M=58.78, SD=5.34; t(61) = 28.38, p < 0.0001] also with a large effect size d = 7.56, but not for PDDS [Pre: M=2, SD = 4.09; Post: M=-0.16, SD = 5.54), t(60) = 1.77, p = 0.0825]. Projects developed by students included a podcast interview with a psychiatrist specializing in psychosis, a letter to be published in a local newspaper, and several presentations to on-campus affinity groups.

To our knowledge, this is the first undergraduate class with the specific aim to destigmatize psychosis and to partner with people with lived experience as stakeholders. A reduction in stigma would help eliminate some of the earliest barriers to accessing treatment (e.g., social and internalized stigma towards psychosis, limited workforce). Our data suggests that students had more positive attitudes towards psychosis at the end of the term. Information shared in this talk will help the audience learn about a variety of methods that can be used to incorporate destigmatizing and recovery-oriented messages in clinical work, supervision, and in general.