In present study we set out to investigate whether personality traits contributing to stress coping, such as neuroticism and extroversion, are associated with chosen factors of stigma perception and coping in patients with depressive disorders. Also, we wanted to assess the force of particular stigma factors and explore demographical differences. We chose five factors of stigma displayed by depressive psychiatric patients: 1) treatment stigma, which is a belief that negative attitudes toward receiving psychiatric treatment exist in society; 2) secrecy, which is a coping strategy based on keeping one's condition in secret; 3) perceived stigma, which is a belief that negative attitudes toward depressive patients exist in society; 4) public or mirrored stigma, which is the patient's internalized prejudices against other patients; and 5) self-stigma, which consists of negative attitudes toward oneself arising from internalized perceived stereotypes and prejudice. We hypothesized that high levels of the stigma dimensions above outlined could relate with neuroticism and extroversion in depressive patients.
