Benefits of employment in people with mental illness: Differential mediating effects of internalized stigma on self‐esteem

Abstract

Previous research shows a negative relationship between the stigmatization of people with mental illness and self-esteem. Through path analysis, the present study examines the extent to which both perceived individual discrimination and perceived group discrimination predict self-esteem and the extent to which internalized stigma and concealment mediate these relationships. We also test whether this mediation is moderated by the amount of time worked. The participants were 110 Spanish people with mental illness (67 men and 43 women) recruited from Spanish nongovernmental organizations. The sample was divided into two groups according to whether they had a permanent employment contract (which occurs when a person has worked for over 5 months). The results confirmed the mediating role of internalized stigma between individual perceived discrimination and self-esteem in the group with permanent employment contracts. Group discrimination had an indirect positive association with self-esteem through reduced internalized stigma in the whole sample. In sum, our results show that being employed for longer may strengthen the relationship between perceived individual discrimination and self-esteem via internalized stigma and that perceived group discrimination may buffer the negative relationship between internalized stigma and self-esteem in people with mental illness.