Since the literature investigating the stigmatising attitudes of psychiatrists is scarce, this is the first study which examines the phenomena across Europe. The Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC) is a widely used questionnaire to measure stigma in healthcare providers towards people with mental illness, although it has not been validated in many European countries.

A cross-sectional, observational, multi-centre study was conducted in 32 European countries to investigate the attitudes towards patients among specialists and trainees in general adult and child psychiatry. In order to be able to compare stigma scores across cultures, we aimed to calculate measurement invariance.

An internet-based, anonymous survey was distributed in the participating countries, which was completed by n=4245 psychiatrists. The factor structure of the scale was investigated by using separate confirmatory factor analyses for each country. The cross-cultural validation was based on multigroup confirmatory factor analyses.

When country data were analysed separately, the three dimensions of the OMS-HC were confirmed, and the bifactor model showed the best model fit. However, in some countries, a few items were found to be weak. The attitudes towards patients seemed favourable since stigma scores were less than half of the reachable maximum. Results allowed comparison to be made between stigma scores in different countries and subgroups.

This international cooperation has led to the cross-cultural validation of the OMS-HC on a large sample of practicing psychiatrists. The results will be useful in the evaluation of future anti-stigma interventions and will contribute to the knowledge of stigma.

No significant relationships.

Many people think that people with mental disorders might be dangerous or unpredictable. These patients face various sources of disadvantages and experience discrimination in job interviews, in education, and housing. Mental health-related stigma occurs not only within the public community, it is a growing issue among professionals as well. Our study is the first that investigates the stigmatising attitude of psychiatrists across Europe.

We designed a cross-sectional, observational, multi-centre, international study of 33 European countries to investigate the attitude towards patients among medical specialists and trainees in the field of general adult and child and adolescent psychiatry.

An internet-based, anonymous survey will measure the stigmatising attitude by using the local version of the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers. Data gathering started in July this year and will continue until December 2020.

This study will be the first to describe the stigmatising attitude of psychiatric practitioners across Europe from their perspectives.

The study will contribute to knowledge of gaps in stigmatising attitude towards people with mental health problems and will provide with new directions in anti-stigma interventions.

No significant relationships.