Objective: School-based interventions for preadolescents provide the opportunity, in a ubiquitous institutional setting, to attack stigmatizing attitudes before they are firmly entrenched, and thus they may reduce mental illness stigma in the overall population. This study evaluated the effectiveness of classroom-based interventions in reducing stigma and increasing understanding of mental illness and positive attitudes toward treatment seeking among sixth-grade students.
Methods: In an ethnically and racially diverse sample (N=721), 40% of participants were Latino, 26% were white, and 24% were African American; the mean age was 11.