title: The stigma of schizophrenia from patients' and relatives' view: A pilot study in an Italian rehabilitation residential care unit.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify the constituent elements of the stigma from the perspective of those having first-hand experiences of it.
  
  
  METHODS
  Subjective experiences of stigma were explored in six focus groups: three with people suffering from schizophrenia and three with patients' relatives. Focus group sessions were tape-recorded, transcribed and analyzed by means of an inductive method, forming categories from the texts, as a basis for coding. Analysis aimed at establishing a typology of stigmatization experiences from the spoken words of the focus group participants.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four dimensions of stigma were identified: access to social roles; internalization of stigma; quality of mental health services, public image of mental illness.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The most frequently found topics concerned experiences of marginalization and discrimination that people with schizophrenia experience in their daily life. These results mirror the findings of similar studies obtained in other cultural contexts.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology Section, Faculty of Medicine, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy. buizza@med.unibs.it.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Buizza
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schulze
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bertocchi
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghilardi
authors.forename: Rosaria
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pioli