People's attitudes towards the mentally disordered, 2010

This study is part of a larger research project carried out by DSI (The Danish Institute for Health Services Research) and SFI (The Danish National Centre for Social Research). The overall study examines the stigma of the mentally ill. This includes qualitative interviews with mentally ill persons regarding their experiences with stigmatisation and a quantitative survey concerned with the attitudes of the general public towards the mentally ill. The data in this study are based on the quantitative part of the study conducted by SFI. The stigma associated with mental illness is defined as the ascription of stereotypical or negative characteristics to mentally ill persons, which can occur in all communities. The aim of the quantitative survey is to establish how much the general public knows about mentally ill persons e.g. their experiences with and attitudes towards them. The survey was conducted over the telephone and on the internet. The respondents were drawn from the CPR-Office (The Central Office of Civil Registration) to ensure they were representative of the Danish population. A random sample comprised of 25565 persons was invited to participate in the internet survey; 2828 (11%) respondents answered the questionnaire. For the telephone survey a random sample of 3632 persons were invited to participate; 2016 (65%) answered the questionnaire.