Professor Examines TV’s Influence on Mental Health Perceptions

Prime-time crime dramas tempt viewers with sensational storylines “ripped from the headlines.” Often the accused are mentally ill. The message: people with mental illness are dangerous, even deadly. Do ugly depictions of mental illness deter people from seeking help because the diagnosis itself carries too heavy a burden? Does that in turn lead to more crime? What about others who suffer in silence rather than face humiliation? Patricia Stout, the John P. McGovern Regents Professor in Health and Medical Science Communication, seeks the answers to these questions.

A member of the Department of Advertising faculty, Stout studies the effects of television on public perceptions, whether stigma prevents mentally ill people from seeking medical attention, and what people in her field can do to help. “It’s not like there’s some sinister plot to stereotype people, but it happens,” Stout says. “It just makes a good story.”

But sometimes it’s not just a story. “If people are stigmatized, then they won’t seek care, and that’s where the problem comes in,” she says. “People think, ‘If I go see a psychologist, then people will know I’m depressed, and then I’ll lose my job, or my marriage will crumble.’”

Stout and fellow researchers have done a content analysis of prime-time TV. The next step will be to determine whether viewers have noticed the same frequent negative messages that her team has noticed. “We are now poised to examine and better understand the link between exposure to representations of mental illness and the effects this may have on attitudes and behaviors,” she says.

Stout sees a multi-pronged solution that not only teaches young people how to be savvy media consumers, but also offers guidelines to help TV producers destigmatize mental illness. The solution could include public service announcements directed at consumers, combined with efforts to get the message out among medical professionals and lawmakers. It’s good to persuade people to use mental-health services, she says, but the services must be available. “Similar to advertising, it doesn’t do any good to get people into the grocery store to buy a product that isn’t on the shelf.”

Much of Stout’s work has combined her chosen discipline, advertising, with communicating about health-related issues, including HIV/AIDS, immunization, and obesity. She knows it’s not the most lucrative path for an ad pro. “Not everybody needs to make a lot of money,” she says. “It’s a way to do something that maybe you’re good at, and that you enjoy, and you’re using it in a pro-social sense.”

Many students share her passion, says Stout, whose professorship was endowed in 1984 by John P. McGovern, the internationally noted physician, scholar, and humanitarian who founded the McGovern Allergy and Asthma Clinic in Houston. “There’s a lot of activity on campus and in the College of Communication — the Department of Advertising, especially — with students who are interested in contributing to the social good.”

Angela Curtis