Results
439 healthy participants (186 females (42.4%), 253 males (57.6%), mean age 35.7 years ± 9.8) without neurological and/or systemic diseases were included in this study. 94.3% (n = 414) of the participants stated that they had knowledge about AD. But only 18.5% (n = 81) had a family history of AD. 95 (%21,6) of the participants were healthcare workers. Also, 152(%34,6) participants were singles.
According to the STIG-MA survey, the mean stigma score of the participants against AD was 8.95 ± 4.79. 60.6% of healthy participants have a moderate-high stigma against AD..Mean scores of the dimensions of perceived stigma are summarized in Table 2.
Participants were divided into three groups according to their scores from this questionnaire: mild stigma (n = 173, 39.4%), medium stigma (n = 133, 30.3%), and severe stigma (n = 133, 30.3%). 31.8% of the participants in the mild stigma group, 50.4% of those in the medium stigma group, and 48.1% of those in the severe stigma group were women (p = 0.001). The mean stigma score was higher in singles (p <0.001). Medium-severe stigma was detected in 72 (75.8%) of 95 healthcare workers participating in the study, and the stigma in healthcare workers was found to be statistically significant compared to non-healthcare workers (p <0.001). The three groups were similar in terms of age, knowledge about AD, family history of AD, and occupations (Table 3).
Correlation analysis was applied to investigate the relationship between dimensions of perceived stigma against AD and age, gender, AD awareness, marital status and occupation. The stigma scores of healthcare workers in all dimensions were higher than those without, and this result was statistically significant ( respectively; p = 0.006, p = 0.034, p <0.001, p = 0.021, p = 0.009). It was observed that women got higher scores in the dimensions of ”reluctance to declare the illness”, ”emotional impact” and ”loss of family support” (p = 0.018, p <0.001, p <0.001, respectively. ). In singles, stigma scores were higher in the dimensions of ”emotional impact” and ”loss of family support” (p = 0.006, p <0.001). Other factors did not have a significant effect on the dimensions of the perceived stigma.