title: The Maristán stigma scale: a standardized international measure of the stigma of schizophrenia and other psychoses.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  People with schizophrenia face prejudice and discrimination from a number of sources including professionals and families. The degree of stigma perceived and experienced varies across cultures and communities. We aimed to develop a cross-cultural measure of the stigma perceived by people with schizophrenia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Items for the scale were developed from qualitative group interviews with people with schizophrenia in six countries. The scale was then applied in face-to-face interviews with 164 participants, 103 of which were repeated after 30 days. Principal Axis Factoring and Promax rotation evaluated the structure of the scale; Horn's parallel combined with bootstrapping determined the number of factors; and intra-class correlation assessed test-retest reliability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The final scale has 31 items and four factors: informal social networks, socio-institutional, health professionals and self-stigma. Cronbach's alpha was 0.84 for the Factor 1; 0.81 for Factor 2; 0.74 for Factor 3, and 0.75 for Factor 4. Correlation matrix among factors revealed that most were in the moderate range [0.31-0.49], with the strongest occurring between perception of stigma in the informal network and self-stigma and there was also a weaker correlation between stigma from health professionals and self-stigma. Test-retest reliability was highest for informal networks [ICC 0.76 [0.67 -0.83]] and self-stigma [ICC 0.74 [0.64-0.81]]. There were no significant differences in the scoring due to sex or age. Service users in Argentina had the highest scores in almost all dimensions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The MARISTAN stigma scale is a reliable measure of the stigma of schizophrenia and related psychoses across several cultures. A confirmatory factor analysis is needed to assess the stability of its factor structure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile. ssaldivi@udec.cl.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Saldivia
authors.forename: Ariadne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Runte-Geidel
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grandón
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Torres-González
authors.forename: Miguel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xavier
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Antonioli
authors.forename: Dinarte A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Ballester
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Melipillán
authors.forename: Emiliano
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Galende
authors.forename: Benjamín
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vicente
authors.forename: José Miguel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Caldas
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Killaspy
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gibbons
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: King
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011287:Prejudice; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000592:standards*; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D057545:Social Stigma; D012944:Social Support; D055815:Young Adult