Tools for assessing nurses’ stigmatizingattitudes toward individuals with mentalillness

Aim. To provide an overview of valid and reliable tools designed to measure nurses’ stigmatising attitudes toward individuals with mental illness, and to compare these tools based on their psychometric properties and applicability in clinical nursing practice. Material and methods. Licensed databases were utilised, including MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus, and EBSCO databases (2000-2023). Relevant studies retrieved from the three databases were included in the narrative review. Data evaluation followed the PRISMA checklist. Results. A total of 171 studies focused on measuring nurses’ stigmatising attitudes toward individuals with mental illness were identified. Based on selection criteria, 12 studies were included in the final analysis. The following tools were used to assess the level of stigmatisation: Community Attitudes towards the Mentally Ill, Opening Minds Scale for Healthcare Providers, Perceived Professional Stigma Scale, Attribution Questionnaire, Attitudes Towards Acute Mental Health Scale, Recovery Attitudes Questionnaire, and Opinions about Mental Illness. Conclusions. The selected tools demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties, including reliability and validity, confirming their usefulness for assessing stigmatisation among healthcare professionals, particularly nurses. However, their application in different sociocultural contexts requires further validation and reliability testing on representative samples of respondents within those settings.