Adolescent mental health consumers' self‐stigma: associations with parents' and adolescents' illness perceptions and parental stigma

Currently, little is known about adolescents' self‐stigma experiences as mental health (MH) treatment recipients. Hence, this study addresses the following two questions: (a) what are adolescents' and parents' perceptions of stigma and perceptions of the cause, controllability, and anticipated outcome (illness perceptions) of adolescents' MH problems? (b) to what extent do illness perceptions (adolescents and parents) and parents' own stigma experiences relate to adolescents' self‐stigmatization? The results, based on data from separate interviews with a voluntary sample of 60 adolescent–parent dyads, clients of MH wraparound services, suggest that approximately 20% of adolescents and parents reported significant concerns related to self‐stigmatization. Using multivariate analyses, we found that the three most prominent factors associated with adolescents' self‐stigma ratings included adolescents' perceptions of social skill deficits and trauma as causal factors pertaining to their mental health challenges, as well as parents' inclination to conceal their child's MH problems from others. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.