title: Effects of Brief Psychoeducational Program on Stigma in Malaysian Pre-clinical Medical Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  If presented with serious mental illness (SMI), individuals' low help-seeking behaviors and poor adherence to treatment are associated with negative stereotypes and attitudes of healthcare providers. In this study, we examined the effects of a brief psychoeducational program on reducing stigma in pre-clinical medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and two pre-clinical medical students (20-23 years old) were randomly assigned to face-to-face contact + educational lecture (n = 51) condition or video-based contact + educational lecture (n = 51) condition. Measures of pre-clinical medical students' mental illness-related stigma using the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC) were administered at pre-, post-treatment, and 1-month follow-up.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A 2 (condition: face-to-face contact + educational lecture, video-based contact + educational lecture) by 3 (time: pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 1-month follow-up) mixed model MANOVA was conducted on the Attitudes, Disclosure and Help-Seeking, and Social Distance OMS-HC subscales. Participants' scores on all subscales changed significantly across time, regardless of conditions. To determine how participants' scores changed significantly over time on each subscale, Bonferroni follow-up comparisons were performed to access pairwise differences for the main effect of time. Specifically, pairwise comparisons produced a significant reduction in Social Distance subscale between pre-treatment and post-treatment and between pre-treatment and 1-month follow-up, and a significant increase between post-treatment and 1-month follow-up, regardless of conditions. With respect to the Attitudes and Disclosure and Help-Seeking subscales, pairwise comparisons produced a significant reduction in scores between pre-treatment and post-treatment and a significant increase between post-treatment and 1-month follow-up.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings provide additional evidence that educational lecture on mental illness, coupled with either face-to-face contact or video-based contact, is predictive of positive outcomes in anti-stigma programs targeting future healthcare providers.
authors.affiliation: Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia. aaron@upm.edu.my.
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9834-472X
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.affiliation: Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Kit-Aun
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Mental Health Commission of Canada, Calgary, Canada.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Knaak
authors.affiliation: Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Boon How
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Chew
authors.affiliation: Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Sazlina Shariff
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Ghazali
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders; D012929:Psychological Distance; D057545:Social Stigma; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Face-to-face contact; Stigma; Video-based contact