title: Epilepsy and secondary perceived stigma in a social setting: A night at the theater.
abstract: Stigma impacts >50% of persons with epilepsy (PWE) and is a key factory in quality of life. Stigma can be both enacted (external factors) and felt (internal factors). In this article, felt/perceived stigma is more broadly defined as a combination of internal factors and perceptions of external factors. Secondary perceived stigma is felt/perceived stigma by a third party. A key, but often underappreciated, consideration in felt/perceived stigma may occur when a seemingly innocuous statement by a speaker is perceived as stigmatizing by the PWE and/or even by an unintended third party. This autobiographic short report addresses secondary perceived stigma in a social setting, the theater.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States; Department of Neurology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States; Department of Anesthesiology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. Electronic address: kaufmakr@rwjms.rutgers.edu.
authors.forename: Kenneth R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Kaufman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004324:Drama; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life; D012640:Seizures / Q000523:psychology; D012931:Social Environment; D057545:Social Stigma; D013240:Stereotyping
keywords: Education; Enacted and felt stigma; Epilepsy; Prevention; Psychosocial comorbidities; Quality of life; Research; Social identity