It has been believed that biomedical knowledge does not reduce or increase discrimination and prejudice against mental illness, but a group of Yasutaka Oshio, a specially appointed researcher at the Center for Evolutionary Cognitive Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo. A follow-up study conducted by the government found that discrimination and prejudice were alleviated.The research group hopes that this knowledge will be applied in the field of education.
According to the University of Tokyo, the research group randomly divided 22 ordinary people with an average age of 179 into two groups who received lectures on biomedical and psychosocial content related to mental illness, and gave a 10-minute lecture. The educational effect was tracked for about a year.
In the biomedical lecture, I taught that the cause of mental illness is in the brain, and that the imbalance of neurotransmitters causes the disorder.In the lecture on psychosocial content, one in four to five people reported that mental illness would develop in their lifetime and a message for recovery.
As a result, it was found that discrimination and prejudice against mental illness were reduced in both groups.Furthermore, it was revealed that the effect is greater in females than in males and in young people aged 21 to 57 years than adults aged 15 to 18.
In the medical community, it has been thought that biomedical knowledge increases discrimination and prejudice against mental illness by expert agreement, but research that education of biomedical knowledge such as treatment mechanism reduced discrimination and prejudice. There was also a discussion.
