[The stereotype of the mentally ill].

The objective of the submitted work was to obtain a more accurate picture of lay ideas on mentally ill people in seven selected population groups--two classes from a school for health workers, two classes of general secondary schools, participants of a training course for nurses organized by the church, employees of the law court and prosecution and patients of a psychiatric hospital/a total of 181 respondents. The respondents were asked to give at least 5 expressions characterizing a mentally sick person or lunatic. A total of 948 statements, incl. 450 different ones, were obtained. The statements were divided into four categories, depending whether they expressed a favourable or unfavourable quality, the need of assistance, protection or sympathy or whether they were neutral. The author assessed the ratio of categories by groups of respondents, repeatedly used expressions and qualities described in the statements. With the exception of the from of pupils of an extension course for health workers, where the majority were statements expressing the need of assistance, in the remaining groups more than half the expressions were unfavourable, in five the difference was statistically significant. The difference between students from the school for health workers and students from general secondary schools was significant only as regards the number of favourable replies from those in the extension course the difference was a smaller number of unfavourable replies. Against expectations, adverse ideas were recorded in the group of subjects training for nursing. Employees of the law court and prosecution used most frequently adverse expressions and made the smallest number of statements expressing the necessity of assistance.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)