EFFECTS OF THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS ON 2 GERMAN POLITICIANS UPON PUBLIC-ATTITUDES TO THE MENTALLY-ILL .2. DEVELOPMENTS IN 1991

As reported in the first part of our paper, in reaction to two assassi na tion attempts carried out on schizophrenicpersons there was a marke d increase of social distance of the German public towards schizophren ic persons. Based on two further inquiries we are able to show that so cial distance decreased slightly during the course of 1991, but at the end of the year was still increased as compared with the situation in early 1990 before the first assassination attempt occurred. There was a corresponding trend in the popular stereotype of psychiatric patien ts. Our findings indicate, however, that the increase of social distan ce was specific for schizophrenic behaviour, since no such de- velopme nt could be observed in relation to major depressive disorder, for whi ch the degree of rejection by the public did not change during the stu dy period. Comparison between the first and final surveys reveals that , besides those persons who had never had contact with psychiatric pat ients, those who were personally involved as patients or relatives als o reacted to the acts of violence by an increase in social distance. A mong those who themselves were providing professional or lay help, or who had psychiatric patients among their friends or acquaintances, in contrast, the degree of social distance remained unchanged.