Impact of gender and age on attitudes towards mental illness in Sweden

Background: Factors such as respondent's sex, age, experience of mental illness and marital status have been found to impact public prejudices toward persons with mental illness. Aims: The impact of respondents' sex, age, real-life experience and marital status on their attitudes towards mental illness was the focus of this study. Methods: Altogether, 2391 respondents completed the Swedish version of Community Attitudes toward the Mentally Ill, CAMI-S. Their answers were reduced by principal component analysis into four factors: Open-minded and Pro-integration, Fear and Avoidance, Community Mental Health Ideology and Intention to Interact with Persons with Mental Illness. By Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the relations between public's sex and age on their attitudes toward mental illness on these four factors were assessed. Impact of experience and marital status on attitudes towards mental illness was assessed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: Females were found to hold a greater open-mindedness and were positive to pro-integration, but they were also fearful and avoidant, more so than males, relative to persons with mental illness. With regard to getting older, as age increased, so did open-mindedness and a pro-integration attitude relative to persons with mental illness; on the other hand as age increased, community mental health ideology decreased. As attitudes of open-mindedness and pro-integration improved, so did attitudes representing community mental health ideology. Furthermore, as fear and avoidance increased, attitudes of open-mindedness and pro-integration increased but also the intention to interact with persons subject to mental illness was improved.