Assessing Mental Illness Stigma: A Complex Issue

The objectives of the present manuscript were to review the literature on stigma toward survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and to identify the most widely used assessment techniques to investigate this issue. The PRISMA guidelines were followed, and the systematic review was registered in PROSPERO, registration number: CRD42022327410. PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed were searched. Two authors selected and extracted data from eligible studies. In total, 4220 hits were returned from the database search, and of them, 24 articles met the inclusion criteria. The articles included in the review confirm the presence of stigma toward IPV survivors, which can be divided into public stigma and self-stigma. Specifically, 17 studies were related only to public stigma, 1 study focused only on self-stigma, and 6 articles investigated aspects related to both public and self-stigma. Both qualitative and quantitative studies have been conducted on this topic. The considerations on the methodologies and assessment measures used in the included studies will be discussed in the results section. Based on the research included, it was possible to develop a contribution to the definition of stigma, which will be discussed in the article.