title: Crazy? So what! Effects of a school project on students' attitudes towards people with schizophrenia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Aiming at promoting young people's mental health and reducing stigma towards people with schizophrenia, project weeks were carried out with secondary school students aged 14-18 years (n=90). Key to the project week is meeting a (young) person with schizophrenia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Students' attitudes and behavioural intentions towards people with schizophrenia were assessed before and after the project. Parallelly, a control group of students were questioned (n=60). Assessment was repeated after 1 month.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Despite expected ceiling effects, the project led to a significant reduction of negative stereotypes. For social distance, a positive trend could be observed. These developments were not present with the controls. Attitude changes were still evident at the 1-month follow-up.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results support the hypothesis that young people's attitudes about schizophrenia are susceptible to change. Antistigma projects at school level could thus be a promising approach to improving public attitudes and to preventing stereotypes from becoming reinforced.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Leipzig, Germany. beatemschulze@web.de
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schulze
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Richter-Werling
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matschinger
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Angermeyer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D011287:Prejudice; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012934:Social Isolation; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*