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Table 2 Stigma Experiences of Patients and Relatives: Verbatim Quotes

From: The stigma of schizophrenia from patients' and relatives' view: A pilot study in an Italian rehabilitation residential care unit

ACCESS TO SOCIAL ROLES

Quote 1 (R., patient, female): "... what really made me suffer more was the abandonment and the indifference on the part of my friends ... slowly I have lost them. I had only one friend left; we grew up together; we had always been like brothers. I would never have thought (I'd ever lose him), but when I told him (about the illness), he disappeared."

Quote 2 (C., relative, sister): "... I can tell my experience. When I was 37 years old and my brother came back home, I realized that his presence prevented me to have close relationships with my friends. Then I went to live away from my family."

QUALITY OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Quote 1 (P., patient, female): "They are going to open a sheltered apartment in street G. I ask myself: Does it have to be in the industrial area at the outskirts of this town? There aren't any services, facilities or stores, there!"

Quote 2 (S., relative, mother): "... doctors are superficial in administering the treatments; they change them frequently. They are superficial in giving diagnoses, often they do not know to respond to the problems related with the disease, or they do not know how to explain the illness. Psychiatrists in the public service change continuously and you must tell each new one the whole story and all the problems all over again. Every doctor, then, makes his own diagnosis and changes the treatment... However, patients are not guinea pigs for experiments!"

INTERNALISED STIGMA ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS

Quote 1 (A., patient, male): "It's true that stigma comes to us from outside, but, in my opinion, a lot of stigma comes to us also from our way of relating to the illness. Most people believe that mental illness is something different from other illnesses such ad heart disease, liver disease and eye problems. But mental illness is a disease that can be cured with the right medication and by accepting the psychiatrist as a specialist that cures that disease .... by accepting this we take a step towards improvement."

Quote 2 (D.., relative, father): "We are the first people who are convinced of this, that those with mental illness are aggressive. This is the problem. This leads to a point where it triggers a mechanism through which we no longer deal with persons, but only with sick ones."

PUBLIC IMAGE OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Quote 1 (T., patient, male): "In my opinion, the prevailing factor is the (public's) fear of something which is little known, such as mental illness ... the information about it does not circulate."

Quote 2 (M., relative, mother): "When there is someone who kills, or hurts another person, the television and the newspapers always claim that it was a schizophrenic's fault, that he or she has had a madness attack ... Who is making all these diagnoses? I wonder if the journalists know what they are talking about."