ORIGINAL PAPER Anxiety, bulimia, drug and alcohol addiction, depression, and schizophrenia: what do you think about their aetiology, dangerousness, social distance, and treatment? A latent class analysis approach Stefania Mannarini • Marilisa Boffo Received: 11 March 2014 / Accepted: 22 June 2014 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract Purpose Mental illness stigma is a serious societal problem and a critical impediment to treatment seeking for mentally ill people. To improve the understanding of mental illness stigma, this study focuses on the simulta- neous analysis of people’s aetiological beliefs, attitudes (i.e. perceived dangerousness and social distance), and recommended treatments related to several mental disor- ders by devising an over-arching latent structure that could explain the relations among these variables. Methods Three hundred and sixty university students randomly received an unlabelled vignette depicting one of six mental disorders to be evaluated on the four variables on a Likert-type scale. A one-factor Latent Class Analysis (LCA) model was hypothesized, which comprised the four manifest variables as indicators and the mental disorder as external variable. Results The main findings were the following: (a) a one- factor LCA model was retrieved; (b) alcohol and drug addictions are the most strongly stigmatized; (c) a realistic opinion about the causes and treatment of schizophrenia, anxiety, bulimia, and depression was associated to lower prejudicial attitudes and social rejection. Conclusion Beyond the general appraisal of mental ill- ness an individual might have, the results generally point to the acknowledgement of the specific features of different diagnostic categories. The implications of the present results are discussed in the framework of a better under- standing of mental illness stigma. Keywords Mental illness stigma  Aetiological beliefs  Dangerousness and social distance  Therapeutic treatment  Latent class analysis Introduction Past and recent research on the causation of mental disor- ders has widely extended our understanding about the biogenetic and psychosocial factors implied in the onset of mental disorders (e.g. [1, 2]). Nevertheless, mental illness stigma manifestations, such as dangerousness perception and social rejection, are still a serious societal problem and a critical impediment for treatment seeking, satisfactory quality of life, and housing and employment among indi- viduals with a mental disorder diagnosis [3, 4]. A precise and thorough understanding of attitudes, stereotypes, and prejudice towards mental disorders is then of fundamental importance to improve the effectiveness of mental health campaigns aimed at combating and preventing mental ill- ness stigma [5]. The scientific literature about stigma towards mentally ill people has been mainly focussing on a few diagnostic categories at once, particularly schizophrenia, depression, and addiction disorders (e.g. [6–15]). Furthermore, research on mental illness stigma has generally tackled it by differently operationalizing stigma and assessing just one or a few different components at once, such as atti- tudes, stereotypes, or beliefs about the aetiology, public acceptance, and/or treatment of mental diseases. S. Mannarini (&)  M. Boffo Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology (FISPPA), University of Padova, via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy e-mail: stefania.mannarini@unipd.it S. Mannarini Interdepartmental Centre for Family Research, FISPPA, University of Padova, Padova, Italy 123 Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol DOI 10.1007/s00127-014-0925-x