Effectiveness of a co-production with dialogue program for reducing stigma against mental illness: a quasi-experimental study with a pre- and post-test design

Abstract For people with mental illness, stigma represents a barrier to social participation. Health professionals, including students, should not hold stigma-based perceptions of such individuals. Further, people with mental illness should not have self-stigma. This study aimed to develop—and examine the effectiveness of—a new program based on co-production with dialogue for reducing stigma among both health science students and people with mental illness. This was a quasi-experimental study, with a pre- and post-test design and no control group. The sample comprised 28 university students majoring in occupational therapy and 20 community-dwelling people with mental illness. The Co-Production with Dialogue Program for Reducing Stigma (CPD-RS) was administered to this sample. Link’s Devaluation Discrimination Scale (DDS) was used to assess whether the program reduced stigma. Compared to their pre-intervention scores, the students’ post-intervention DDS scores significantly decreased, persisting for at least one month, but those of people with mental illness showed no significant change. Both the students and people with mental illness evaluated the program as “positive” through a questionnaire administered two months after the intervention. These results suggest that the CPD-RS reduces health science students’ stigma toward people with mental illness and fosters mutual understanding among the two groups.