effects of an anti-stigma program on components of stigma on patients with mental disorders among nursing students

effects of an anti-stigma program on components of stigma on patients with mental disorders among nursing students asayesh h1 (msc), rahmani anaraki h2 (msc), qorbani m3,4 (phd), aliakbarzade arani z5* (msc) 1 medical emergency department, paramedical faculty, qom university of medical sciences,qom, iran 2 medical-surgical department, nursing & midwifery faculty, golestan university of medical sciences, gorgan, iran 3 department of community medicine, medical faculty, alborz university of medical sciences, karaj, iran 4 non-communicable diseases research center, endocrinology and metabolism population sciences institute, tehran university of medical sciences, tehran, iran 5 operating room department, paramedical faculty, qom university of medical sciences. qom, iran original article received: 30 may 2015, accepted: 16 sep 2015 abstract introduction: stigma on patients with mental disorders is common among general population as well as health care providers and medical sciences&apos; students. this study was carried out to assess the effect of an anti-stigma program on components of stigma on patients with mental disorders among nursing students. methods: in this trial, 43 nursing students of gorgan school of nursing and midwifery were recruited and randomly divided into two control and intervention groups. the anti-stigma program consisted of 10 sessions twice a week. the day&apos;s mental illness stigma questionnaire was completed by the students at baseline and after the intervention. the cronbach&apos;s alpha of the scale was 0.79. the data were analyzed in the spss-16 using the independent t-test, paired t-test and covariance. results: mean ages were 21.86±0.75 and 21.20±0.61 in the intervention and control groups, respectively. the number of female students were 19 (6.82%) and 17 (0.85%) in the intervention and control groups. after the intervention, the overall stigma score were 115.60±18.66 and 93.69±20.36 in the intervention and control groups, respectively (p<0.05). conclusion: designing appropriate programs in order to provide proper information based on the available facts about mental illness can reduce the stigma among nursing students. key words: stigma, anti-stigma program, students please cite this article as follows: asayesh h, rahmani anaraki h, qorbani m, aliakbarzade arani z. effects of an anti-stigma program on components of stigma on patients with mental disorders among nursing students. hakim health sys res 2016; 18(4): 275- 281.   * corresponding author: qom, shahid lavsani street, qom university of medical sciences educational, paramedical faculty, tel: +98- 913- 7295893, fax: +98- 253- 7703738. e-mail: [email protected]