A majority of Taiwan people are biased against mental patients, a spokesman for the Taiwanese Society of Psychiatry (TSP) said yesterday.
"This was the finding of a recent TSP telephone survey of 1,090 local residents over the age of 15," TSP Deputy Secretary-General Liao Shih-cheng (
Nearly 80 percent of the respondents said they think that mental patients are dangerous and are susceptible to losing control of their emotions at anytime.
More than half of those interviewed also said they are unwilling to live next door to a mental patient.
The same poll also found that one out of every six respondents thinks that mental patients are like people "possessed by evil spirits."
Meanwhile, 57 percent said they think that mental patients cannot take care of themselves.
"All of these poll results show that a majority of local people have a flawed perception of mental illness, " said Liao, a psychiatrist with National Taiwan University.
Throughout his career as a psychiatric practitioner, Liao said, he has never been hurt by any of his patients.
As a matter of fact, he said, he has often encountered cases where mental patients commit suicide or hurt themselves.
Quoting medical records, Liao said, the number of cases involving mental patients hurting themselves is 10 times the number involving mental patients hurting others.
Liao lamented that the trend of "demonizing" mental illness and patients has hindered local patients' willingness to seek professional treatment for their mental disorders or illnesses.
According to a previous TSP survey, three out of every 10 local people have at one time suffered from one or more of the various forms of mental or emotional problems.
Such disorders could range from simple sleeping problems to chronic and acute depression.
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