Effective Factors in Experiencing Shame in Families of Patients with Severe Psychiatric Disorders: Perceived Stigma, Rejection Sensitivity, Cognitive Appraisal

Stigma is a major stressor for many families of psychiatric patients. It is unclear, however, why some families appraised stigma as more stressful, while others feel they can cope with it. The aim of this research was to investigate the role of perceived stigma, cognitive appraisal and rejection sensitivity on shame. A group of 150 families of patients were selected through convenient sampling method. A series of statistical analysis including Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis was used to study the relationship between the variables. According to the results of the research, there is a relationship between perceived stigma with other variables, but there is no significant relationship between cognitive appraisal with rejection sensitivity and rejection sensitivity with internal shame. According to the model extracted from regression analysis, 23 percent of the variance of internal shame can be accounted for by perceived stigma and cognitive appraisal and 23 percent of the variance of external shame can be accounted for by perceived stigma and rejection sensitivity. Negative attribution towards mental disorders lead to internal shame and rejection sensitivity with considering others as a source of threat lead people to external shame.