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      Internalized stigma: Social support, coping, psychological distress, and mental well-being among older adults in Ghana

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          Abstract

          Background:

          Older adults have been found to internalize stigma from society and this has been linked to several variables including social support, coping, psychological distress, and mental well-being. However, there is a dearth of research on how these variables interact with each other to impact the life of older adults.

          Aims:

          This study employed path analysis to explore social support and coping as boundary conditions and underlying mechanisms in the link between internalized stigma, psychological distress, and mental well-being, among older adults in Ghana.

          Method:

          Using a cross-sectional design, the study recruited 167 older adults who responded to standardized questionnaires including The Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale, Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale, The Brief Coping Inventory, Kessler Distress Scale, and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, to determine levels of internalized stigma, social support, coping strategies, psychological distress, and mental well-being, respectively.

          Results:

          The findings revealed that at low levels of social support, there is a significant and positive correlation between internalized stigma and mental well-being (β = −.36, SE = 0.17, p< .001). Path analysis showed that the relationship between internalized stigma and mental well-being was fully mediated by problem-focused coping (β = .11, p = . 001, 95% CI [0.04, 0.21]), but not psychological distress. Problem-focused coping was also found to have a significant positive correlation with mental well-being but no significant correlation with psychological distress. Conversely, avoidant-focused coping was found to have a significant positive correlation with psychological distress and a significant negative correlation with mental well-being.

          Conclusions:

          This study revealed the importance of social support and coping to attaining mental well-being among older adults. This study provides insights into the development of tailored interventions aimed at improving social support and problem-focused coping among older Ghanaian adults facing internalized stigma, and it also establishes a base for future research.

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          Most cited references67

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          The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support

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            Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being.

            Carol Ryff (1989)
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              On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being.

              Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Int J Soc Psychiatry
                Int J Soc Psychiatry
                ISP
                spisp
                The International Journal of Social Psychiatry
                SAGE Publications (Sage UK: London, England )
                0020-7640
                1741-2854
                7 February 2024
                June 2024
                : 70
                : 4
                : 739-749
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
                [2 ]School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada
                Author notes
                [*]Kwamina Abekah-Carter, School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland, P.O. Box 4200 230 Prince Philip Drive, St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada. Email: kwamina29@ 123456gmail.com
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2249-7842
                Article
                10.1177_00207640241227128
                10.1177/00207640241227128
                11144357
                38327024
                fb2b09d6-0bc6-4065-b4a7-dcae3b6c0192
                © The Author(s) 2024

                This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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                Original Articles
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                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                internalized stigma,social support,coping,mental well-being,older adults

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