Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Children's Stigmatization of Childhood Depression and ADHD: Magnitude and Demographic Variation in a National Sample
Section snippets
Method
The survey was administered online in summer 2006 by the polling firm Harris Interactive (HI). HI maintains a panel of more than 6 million members who have agreed to participate in online surveys. HI is a member organization of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, and as such complies with the Council of American Survey Research Organizations Code of Standards and Ethics for Survey Research.22 The Code includes detailed standards for protecting survey respondents and
Results
Table 2 shows mean item and scale scores for the depression, ADHD, and asthma conditions on negative and positive attributions, social distance, and family attitudes. Overall, the mean scores for the stigmatizing items are relatively low for all three conditions, with means below 3, the midpoint score. However, mean scores for ADHD and depression are significantly higher than those for asthma. Guidelines for Cohen d aid in interpretation of the magnitude of difference: ∼0.2, small; ∼0.50,
Discussion
The low mean scores and narrow SDs within ADHD and depression conditions on most of the stigmatizing items is a positive sign. For most stigmatizing items, >80% of respondents endorsed the neutral category or lower. The comparison with asthma, however, brings into contrast the stigmatization of ADHD and depression. For nearly all of the stigmatizing items, both ADHD and depression were significantly higher than asthma. Overall, the depression condition elicited the most negative stigmatizing
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This research was supported by funding from the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education, and the Center for Mental Health Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (NIDRR grant no. H133B990025). The content does not necessarily represent the views or policies of the funding agencies. Special thanks to Suzanne Martin and Harris Interactive.
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