Mental health disability identity relies on multiple personal factors

DENVER — Mental health disability identity relies on factors such as health prioritization, willingness for disclosure and need for integration, a speaker said at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America annual conference.

“The degree to which people identify with a mental health diagnosis is an understudied section of the field. We are seeking to fill that gap,” Emily Badillo-Winard, BA, of the department of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, said in a presentation.

Badillo-Winard and research partner Kari Eddington, PhD, sought to determine the conceptual basis of and gain psychometric data regarding the degree to which people identify with any mental health disability.

The study included 255 participants (mean age, 28.63 years), who self-reported a mental health diagnosis via the Mental Health-Disability Identity and Behavior Scale, Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Scale, and the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help scale. Three main mental health concerns among participants were anxiety (89%), depression (77%) and concentration issues (49%).

Results showed that three factors in common between the MH-DIBS and ISMI-10 were found to have small but statistically significant correlations, which suggests each scale measures similar but unrelated constructs regarding patient behaviors and thought processes.

Researchers additionally found a significant but moderately positive correlation between the three factors of MH-DIBS and ATSPPH, suggesting a relationship between mental health diagnosis and willingness to seek out professional assistance.

“Anecdotally, clinicians can relate to finding patients who over-attribute everyday occurrences to having a mental health diagnosis. That can really affect their treatment outcomes,” Badillo-Winard said. “We’re looking to see if there is a range of people who identify with mental health diagnoses and [measure] how that impacts different outcomes.”