A conspicuously high level of the sense of treatment-stigma may have to do with strong stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination against psychiatric patients in general [12]. While other scales of the depression stigma questionnaire refer to depression itself, treatment-stigma is the only one referring to receiving treatment for depression. The noteworthy comparison here is the one between treatment- and perceived-stigma, since both reflect negative social attitudes concerning depression (other scales concern the coping style, subject's attitudes, and self-assessment), but perceived-stigma includes no references to treatment. Both these dimensions of stigma were heavily experienced by the patients, which speaks to the substantial negative social attitudes directed to, and perceived by, the patients. Taking into account that all of the patients were hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals during the study, it is understandable they referred to the psychiatric treatment. Thus, the outcome may be simply a reflection of low mental health literacy in the patients' social environment, one of the causes of existing prejudices and discrimination against psychiatric patients regardless of disorder, which has been previously reported by some other studies [13]. Although this
