A culturally-sensitive stigma survey among adolescents in Flanders: Understanding causes and consequences to tackle stigmatisation

Despite efforts to destigmatise mental health care seeking, talking
about psychological problems and seeking professional help,
generally remain taboo among Flemish adolescents. In this project
we will explore how teenagers think about mental health problems,
what stigmatising attitudes they develop and what kind of help
seeking they advise to their peers. To date, Flemish adolescents’
stigmatising attitudes on mental health problems and care seeking
have not yet been fully studied (except for stigma towards
depression) and survey questionnaires have not been adjusted to
ethnically diverse populations. This project makes use of an original
mixed-methods design. Starting with exploratory qualitative focus
groups, a new version of the original Stigma in a Global Context
Mental Health Survey will be developed and adjusted to ethnically
diverse adolescents. The envisioned culturally-sensitive survey will
allow to explore different cultural, spiritual, and religious health care
seeking options and coping mechanisms. The survey will be
conducted with a representative sample of Flemish youth. As such,
the results of this project will inform future stigma-prevention
campaigns, adapted to the present-day superdiverse society.