Depression is a brain disease: Examining the affective impacts of anti-stigma public education

Background: Although depression is common and ranks among the leading causes of disability worldwide, mental illness stigma prevents many depressed people from seeking depression treatment. One popular approach to combating stigma involves reducing blame via biomedically-focused public education campaigns promoting the idea that mental illness is “a brain disease.” Despite the popularity of these campaigns, findings are equivocal regarding their effectiveness and some research suggests that they may have unintended negative consequences. The present study tested whether a biologically-based anti-stigma message influenced research participants' attitudes and affect, key variables in stigma development.

Methods: 182 undergraduates were randomly assigned to see the experimental message, “depression is a brain disease,” or a neutral control message. Dependent variables included positive and negative affect, message appeal, and stigma.

Results: After accounting for depression, 2 (gender) x 2 (message) ANCOVAs confirmed that the experimental message was more emotionally activating than the control message, leading to significantly higher levels of negative (F(1,180)=9.58,p<.01,η_p²=.05) and positive affect (F(1,180)=3.89,p=.05,η_p²=.02). Participants reported significant negative attitudes toward the experimental message, with appeal ratings that were significantly worse than the control message (F(1,168)=9.01,p<.01,η_p²=.05). Participants' affective responses the experimental message were not modified by personal experiences with depression. Finally, contrary to its intent, the experimental message failed to reduce stigma.

Conclusions: The public education anti-stigma message, “depression is a brain disease,” increased participants' affect, was rated as unappealing, and failed to reduce stigma in this sample. These preliminary findings raise some concern about continued use of similar public education messages.