[Stigma in Psychiatry]

Mental illness affects 48.9 % of the Moroccan population. Despite this significant figure, mental illness remains unrecognized. The patients suffering from mental disorders are therefore subject to stigma and social rejection. A descriptive study was conducted at the consultation service of the psychiatric Ibn Nafiss hospital of the CHU of Marrakech. We chose as a sample 100 stabilized patients, followed on an outpatient basis. The study included the three mental disorders: depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. The number of patients in each group had been fixed beforehand; and we tried to get a fairly even distribution between the two genders. The questionnaire had three main axes: (1) Sociodemographic data of the patient. (2) Knowledge of the disease. (3) Evaluation of the experience of stigma. The results of our sample were as follows: For both sexes the age extremes were 19 to 68 years with an average of 38.5 with a clear predominance of women. For the entire population, most patients were single with a percentage of 60 %. Two thirds of the patients, i.e. 59 %, did not exceed primary school. For personal medical history, endocrine pathologies were the most prevalent, at 18 % of cases, while depression was the most common family psychiatric history in our study. We noticed that our population suffered more discrimination and disclosure from those around them regardless of family, social and professional with less appreciation of the positive aspects.