[The stigmatisation of schizophrenia, psychosis and autism in the Flemish daily papers]. / Stigma rond schizofrenie, psychose en autisme in de Vlaamse dagbladen, 2013-2017.

BACKGROUND: A considerable social stigma is attached to psychiatric disorders. Evidence shows that the portrayal of schizophrenia in the media is particularly negative. It has been proposed to replace the term schizophrenia by psychosis susceptibility or psychosis spectrum disorder.
AIM: Follow-up of the study of the seven Flemish newspapers published between 2008-2012: to compare the degree of stigma in reporting of autism, schizophrenia and psychosis in the Flemish daily newspapers published between 2013-2017.
METHOD: Via the websites of the seven Flemish daily newspapers, we searched for all articles published between 2013 and 2017 containing the keywords autism, schizophrenia, psychosis and related terms. The collected articles (n = 5,337) were then graded to their stigmatising content.
RESULTS: In the collected articles the coverage of autism was mostly positive, whereas the coverage of schizophrenia was predominantly negative and of psychosis both positive and negative. The contrast between the reporting on autism and on schizophrenia was very substantial (p < 0.0001). The positive coverage of autism increased over time, the coverage of schizophrenia was negative in a stable way. The coverage of psychosis was only positive in the broadsheet newspapers.
CONCLUSION: The social stigma attached to schizophrenia and psychosis is poignantly reflected in the Flemish newspapers. The fact that a comparable disorder such as autism is depicted in a much more favorable way than schizophrenia indicates that a more positive image of schizophrenia is not only desirable but also achievable.

[The stigmatising of schizophrenia and autism in the Flemish daily papers]. / Stigma rond schizofrenie en autisme in de Vlaamse dagbladen.

BACKGROUND: A considerable social stigma is attached to many types of psychiatric disorders. However, research also shows that there are differences in the degree of social stigma attached to psychiatric disorders. There is evidence that the portrayal of schizophrenia in the media is particularly negative. AIM: To compare the degree of stigma in reporting of autism and schizophrenia in the Flemish daily newspapers. METHOD: Via the websites of the seven Flemish daily newspapers, we searched for all articles published between 2008 and 2012 containing the keywords autism/autist(ic) and schizophrenia/schizophrenic. The collected articles (n = 4,181) were then graded to their stigmatising content. RESULTS: In the collected articles the coverage of autism was mostly positive, whereas the coverage of schizophrenia was predominantly negative. The contrast between the reporting on autism and on schizophrenia was very substantial (p < 0.0001) and the negative coverage of both disorders increased over time. CONCLUSION: The social stigma attached to schizophrenia is poignantly reflected in the Flemish newspapers. The fact that a disorder such as autism, which has many features in common with schizophrenia, is depicted in a much more favourable way than schizophrenia indicates that a more positive image of schizophrenia is not only desirable but also achievable.