A survey of staff attitudes to smoking-related policy and intervention in psychiatric and general health care settings.

Background: Although the move to smoke-free hospital settings is generally a popular initiative, it may be a more challenging and controversial issue in mental health care. A survey was carried out to investigate differences in attitudes between clinical staff in psychiatric and general medical settings to smoke-free policy and intervention.

Method: The sample comprised 2574 NHS staff working in two Acute Hospital Trusts and one Mental Health Trust in England.

Stigmatization of people with mental illnesses: a follow-up study within the Changing Minds campaign of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

A population survey before the start of the Changing Minds campaign showed that negative opinions about people with mental illnesses were widely held, and that opinions about different disorders differed in important ways. We repeated the survey 5 years later, when the campaign had ended. Interviews were again conducted with a representative population sample (1725 interviews; response rate 65%), enquiring about demographic variables, about eight opinions concerning seven common mental disorders, and whether the respondents knew anyone with one of these mental disorders.