Katrina Scior

University College London | UCL · Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology

Family caregivers of people with dementia often face unique challenges in their caregiving role, including the complex task of sharing their caregiving experiences and identity with their social networks. Social media platforms provide a valuable avenue for self-disclosure of stigmatized identities such as dementia, enabling access to support. This...

Background and Objectives Given the stigma of dementia, individuals with the condition may be wary to disclose their diagnosis to other people, both in face-to-face and digital settings. While sharing one’s dementia diagnosis with others is essential for accessing valuable support for social, cognitive, and physical well-being, this area of researc...

Clinical significance of a broad autism phenotype (BAP) seems to be increasingly supported by growing reports of high prevalence of subthreshold autism spectrum disorder (sASD) or autistic traits (AT) in various demographic samples, particularly in individuals with psychiatric conditions. We question this increasing extension of the autism spectrum...

Background Sharing a dementia diagnosis with others is a prerequisite to accessing important support for social, cognitive, and physical activity. However, due to the stigma associated with dementia, individuals may be hesitant to disclose their diagnosis. Despite the importance of this issue, there is limited research on personal experiences with...

Background The Syrian conflict has been ongoing since 2011. Practical and scalable solutions are urgently needed to meet an increase in need for specialised psychological support for post-traumatic stress disorder given limited availability of clinicians. Training forcibly displaced Syrians with a mental health background to remotely deliver specia...

Background Research into befriending for people with intellectual disabilities is limited. This study aimed to explore the impact, mechanisms of change, and limitations of a befriending scheme for adults with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. Methods Participants were recruited using convenience sampling. Thirteen individuals with intellect...

Introduction The negative consequences of stigma for the wellbeing of people with disabilities have raised public and global health concerns. This study assessed the impact of an e-intervention to reduce intellectual disability (ID) stigma among Nigerian and Kenyan internet-users. Method Participants aged 18+ and citizens of Nigeria and Kenya were...

In this pilot study, we report on the feasibility, acceptability and potential impact of ‘Who, When, How to Share’, a new disclosure decision-making programme for autistic adults. We evaluated this programme using pre-post mixed-methods surveys that included questions about participants’ experiences of the programme and four psychosocial outcome me...

Background Stigma contributes to the negative social conditions persons with intellectual disabilities are exposed to, and it needs tackling at multiple levels. Standing Up for Myself is a psychosocial group intervention designed to enable individuals with intellectual disabilities to discuss stigmatising encounters in a safe and supportive setting...

Background Befriending is an intervention intended to provide companionship and support to socially isolated populations. This review aimed to understand the key characteristics and psychological and social outcomes of befriending interventions for adults with intellectual disabilities. Methods Systematic searches of electronic databases (PsycINFO...

Social media can facilitate self-disclosure of a stigmatized identity. This mixed-methods study explores self-disclosure by people with dementia on social media, comparing patterns and purpose of use by those aged 65 and above versus those aged under 65. Of 143 internet-using respondents of an online survey, 77 (aged between 44 and 88 years) were u...

Objectives: People living with dementia can feel hesitant disclosing their diagnosis to social networks, partly due to stigma. Little attention has been paid to the measurement of disclosure decisions and stigma, and few standardised stigma tools have been validated in languages other than English. We investigated the psychometric properties of Du...

In this pilot study, we report on the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary impact of ‘Who, When, How to Share’, a new disclosure decision-making programme for autistic adults. We evaluated this programme using pre-post mixed methods surveys that included questions about participants’ experiences of the programme and four psychosocial outcome...

Background: The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS; Tennant et al., 2007) is yet to be validated in the intellectual disability (ID) population. The aim of this study was to report the development process and assess the psychometric properties of a newly adapted version of the WEMWBS and the Short WEMWBS for individuals with mild to...

Background: Our STORM intervention was developed for people (16 +) with intellectual disabilities to enhance their capacity to manage and resist stigma. The current study describes the adaptation of STORM for (synchronous) on-line delivery in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Aims: To adapt the manualised face-to-face STORM group interventio...

Background: In the general population, low self-esteem has been linked with poorer mental and physical health. This systematic literature review aimed to summarise and evaluate the findings of studies that examined self-esteem in adults with intellectual disabilities and links with mental health outcomes. Method: A systematic search of PsycINFO,...

Background: Multiple measures of mental health problems and mental wellbeing for adults with intellectual disabilities are available, but investigations into their reliability and validity are still in the early stages. The aim of this systematic review was to provide an update to previous evaluations of measures of common mental health problems a...

Many autistic adults experience public stigma and some internalise this stigma with negative effects on their mental health. While efforts to reduce public stigma are paramount, change can be slow, and interventions to prevent internalised stigma may also be needed. Using a mixed methods online survey, we gathered the views of 144 autistic adults a...

Receiving a diagnosis of dementia can affect all aspects of an individual’s life, including their sense of identity. As a consequence, some people with dementia may socially withdraw due to stigma, embarrassment or fear of what might happen if other people were to find out about the diagnosis. The “Who to tell, how and when” intervention, a group‐b...

Aims Mental wellbeing, encompassing dimensions of hedonia (feeling good) and eudaimonia (functioning well), is considered a valuable resource for individuals and communities. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS; Tennant et al., 2007), a 14-item positively worded measure of mental wellbeing, has been extensively psychometrically val...

Background Models of caregiving seldom include the role of stigma when understanding the experiences of carers of people living with dementia. Aims To investigate the validity of the Family Stigma Instrument (FAMSI), and use it to explore the extent to which experiences of stigma are endorsed in family carers of people living with dementia. Metho...

Background During the Covid‐19 pandemic, there has been a worldwide increase in the use of digital technology. Many people with learning disabilities have learned new digital skills, taken part in online activities, and kept in touch with family and friends using video calls. However, the experiences of digital participation or nonparticipation for...

Background: People with intellectual disabilities are at risk of experiencing stigma and require the skills and confidence to deal with stigma in their daily lives. Method: Development and piloting of a 5-session manualised psychosocial group intervention designed to increase the capacity of people with intellectual disabilities aged 16+ to mana...

Many autistic adults experience public stigma, which may be internalised and lead to self-stigma. While efforts to reduce public stigma are paramount, change can be slow, and interventions to prevent self-stigma may also be needed. Using a mixed methods online survey, we gathered the views of 144 autistic adults and parents/caregivers of autistic p...

Having a disability, in particular, an intellectual disability, is associated with Internet non-use. This article explores how people with intellectual disabilities used the Internet across the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April to May 2021, 571 adults with intellectual disabilities were interviewed. Participants most commonly us...

Learning to live with a diagnosis of dementia is a complex process. Many people affected by dementia choose not to disclose the diagnosis to others and avoid social activities due to fear of others’ adverse reactions. This in turn can limit their social participation and negatively affect their psychosocial health. A systematic review explored fact...

Autism can be understood as a concealable stigmatized identity. This is the first systematic review to synthesize the literature on autistic people's experiences of stigma and coping strategies. 2877 studies were screened and 27 were included in this review. The reviewed literature demonstrates that autistic individuals are acutely aware of being s...

Background: Dementia, to a certain degree in the early stages, can be a concealable condition. People with dementia often feel stigmatized and choose not to disclose their diagnosis to others. While concealing the diagnosis can prevent further stigmatization, it can also contribute to psychological consequences and limited social support, and prev...

Background Given the much greater COVID-19 mortality risk experienced by people with intellectual disabilities (ID), understanding the willingness of people with ID to take a COVID-19 vaccine is a major public health issue. Method In December 2020 to February 2021, across the United Kingdom, 621 adults with ID were interviewed remotely and 348 fam...

Autism can be understood as a concealable stigmatised identity. This is the first systematic review to synthesise the literature on autistic people’s experiences of stigma and coping strategies. 2877 records were screened and 26 studies included in this review. The reviewed literature demonstrates that autistic individuals are acutely aware of bein...

Mental health professionals with lived experience often experience heightened stigma and fear that their competency may be questioned. We present a new intervention (HOP-MHP) designed to support them in decisions about sharing their lived experience and preliminary results regarding the intervention’s acceptability and feasibility.

Background: People with intellectual disability are among the most stigmatised groups in society. There is a paucity of studies reporting on how stigma is experienced in low- and middle-income countries. This study aims to explore the experience of stigma among adults with mild/moderate intellectual disability and the extent of their inclusion in...

Background Within the current context of a global pandemic, the value of the Internet has been greatly elevated for many people. This study is an investigation into a 30-day online intervention called Creativity in Mind (CIM). Aims To provide a preliminary indication of the relationship between participation in CIM and change in mood symptoms and...

Background: A diagnosis of dementia presents individuals with both social and psychological challenges but research on self-stigma in dementia has been largely confined to qualitative approaches due to a lack of robust outcome measures that assess change. The Stigma Impact Scale (SIS) is the most commonly used measure of self-stigma in dementia bu...

This study investigates levels of secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and compassion satisfaction in Syrian mental health workers (MHWs) in a low-resource post-conflict environment. Sixty-one Syrian MHWs completed a cross-sectional questionnaire, in Arabic, incorporating the professional quality of life (ProQOL) scale. Our Arabic-translated ProQOL...

Article 8 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities requires governments around the globe to raise awareness on issues of disability in their societies, combatting stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices. Little comparative data is available on lay people's social representations of intellectual disability and associated...

Objective This study describes the adaptation of Honest, Open, Proud (HOP), to develop an empowerment intervention supporting disclosure decision-making for dyads of people living with dementia and their chosen supporter. Methods Medical Research Council guidelines for developing complex interventions informed intervention development and feasibil...

Background Anxiety and depression are common in people living with dementia (PLWD) and Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) seems to be one of the few efficacious interventions. However, PLWD's ability to engage with CBT has been questioned due to the presumed impact of neurocognitive impairment on core skills necessary to engage with CBT (pre-thera...

Objectives To explore the impact of the provision of care of forcibly displaced Syrian mental health professionals (MHPs) to Syrian clients in the community given shared experiences and backgrounds with clients. Design A qualitative study using thematic analysis of in-depth semistructured interviews to explore shared realities, self-disclosure and...

Background: A diagnosis of dementia presents individuals with both social and psychological challenges but research on self-stigma in dementia has been largely confined to qualitative approaches due to a lack of robust outcome measures that assess change. The Stigma Impact Scale is the most commonly used measure of self-stigma in dementia but its s...

Background: A diagnosis of dementia presents individuals with both social and psychological challenges but research on self-stigma in dementia has been largely confined to qualitative approaches due to a lack of robust outcome measures that assess change. The Stigma Impact Scale (SIS) is the most commonly used measure of self-stigma in dementia but...

Background: A diagnosis of dementia presents individuals with both social and psychological challenges but research on self-stigma in dementia has been largely confined to qualitative approaches due to a lack of robust outcome measures that assess change. The Stigma Impact Scale (SIS) is the most commonly used measure of self-stigma in dementia but...

There is a dearth of studies that have examined the attitudes of society toward people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) on a global scale. This study set out to gauge the extent to which ID continues to be stigmatized and to which initiatives are in place to increase their inclusion and tackle stigma around the globe. Data were collected using...

The stigma associated with mental health problems leaves many feeling they have to ‘hide’ their difficulties. Supporting them in making disclosure decisions can potentially improve well-being, reduce self-stigma and support recovery processes. In this editorial we discuss the case for interventions designed for this purpose and present one prominen...

People with mental health problems often experience self-stigma, whereby they internalise stereotypic or stigmatising views held by others. Self-stigma is known to have negative effects on self-esteem and self-efficacy and a continuing impact on psychological wellbeing. Self-help interventions designed to reduce self-stigma may have an important co...

Thought–feeling discrimination in people with dementia: adaptation and preliminary validation of the first dementia-specific measure - CORRIGENDUM - Joshua Stott, Tim Cadman, Henry Potts, Katrina Scior, Janina Brede, Georgina Charlesworth

Objectives: Anxiety and depression are common and deleterious comorbidities in people living with dementia (PLWD). Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the few promising treatments; however, it is unclear whether PLWD have the necessary prerequisites to engage in this. Having an understanding of cognitive mediation, that a thought mediate...

Background: There is no one agreed definition of self-advocacy, but it can be taken to include actions and concepts such as standing up for one's rights and self-determination. Method: A review of studies examining the psychological and social impact of self-advocacy group membership on people with intellectual disabilities was conducted. System...

Studies have investigated the experiences of courtesy stigma and affiliate stigma in family members of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) without a clear distinction between the two. This systematic literature review aimed to evaluate the findings of studies that examined the experiences of stigma in families of indi...

Objective There is emerging evidence that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be effective for treating anxiety and depression in people living with dementia (PLWD). Discriminating between thoughts and feelings is a critical element of CBT and also of relevance to emotional understanding more generally. The aim of the present study was the struc...

Background A 2005 review by Beart, Hardy and Buchan, asking how people with intellectual disabilities view their social identities, has been widely cited, indicating this important topic needs an updated review. This review covers research on how people with intellectual disabilities view their ascribed label; to what extent they ascribe it to them...

Objective: The objectives of this systematic review were to: 1) understand how people living with dementia are involved in making decisions; 2) explore the different decisional styles and domains of decision-making that people living with dementia experience and 3) identify what influences the level of decisional involvement of people living with d...

This study aimed to explore key professionals’ attitudes towards people with intellectual disability (ID) and inclusion of said people in the community. Eighteen participants from three professional groups, comprising health practitioner (medical doctors, psychologists), mainstream/special education teachers, and religious leaders (Islam, Catholici...

This study aimed to improve our understanding of the experience of anxiety and panic related cognitions among Saudi-Arabian individuals and to examine the potential role that culture might have in influencing their symptom expression. Given the lack of previous research, this study adopted an exploratory, qualitative approach using Thematic Analysi...

Background There is a lack of good-quality instruments measuring stigma experienced by family members of stigmatised people. Aims To develop a self-report measure of stigma among families of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and examine associations between family stigma and other variables. Method The new Family Stigma Inst...

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Background Little is known about the lives of parents with intellectual disabilities from minority ethnic communities. Previous research suggests that what it means to live with intellectual disabilities varies across cultural contexts. The current research aimed to explore how cultural values and practices impact upon the experiences of parents wi...

A 2016 report from the National Academy of Sciences describes strategies that reduce the stigma of mental illness. Prominent among these are contact between people with and without mental illness and strategic disclosure for lessening both public and self-stigma. The report also recognizes the complexity of stigma in the realm of psychiatric phenom...

Objectives This study investigated the incidence of lived experience of mental health problems amongst UK‐based trainee clinical psychologists and factors associated with anticipated disclosure for trainees both with and without lived experience. Methods A web‐based survey comprising the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, an adapted version of...

1 Objective(s) To assess the prevalence of personal experiences of mental health problems among clinical psychologists, external, perceived, and self‐stigma among them, and stigma‐related concerns relating to disclosure and help‐seeking. 2 Method Responses were collected from 678 UK‐based clinical psychologists through an anonymous web survey cons...

Background: Intellectual disability research has concentrated on self-reported explicit attitudes with little focus on implicit attitudes. Such attitudes are evaluations which occur with or without conscious awareness, respectively. This investigation examined participants' (N = 234) attitudes towards individuals with intellectual disabilities wit...

Background Donation of haematopoietic stem cells, either through bone marrow (BM) or peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) collection, is a generally safe procedure for healthy donors, although side effects are a known risk. Previous research, including our recent quantitative study, has shown that the psychosocial response to donating is usually a pos...

Themes and codes—first draft. (PDF)

Background: Extended brief interventions for alcohol misuse are effective in the general population. The process of manualising the first ever such intervention for people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities in the UK is the focus of this study. Methods: The manual was an adaptation of existing manuals based on Motivational Enhanceme...

This article is based on a presentation given to the DCP Group of Trainers in Clinical Psychology (GTiCP) Annual Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon in November 2016. It sets out the background for training in Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) as part of clinical psychology training and examines current training practice as well as areas for developme...

Background: Evidence on the effects of contact and education based interventions on attitudes is limited in the intellectual disability field. This study compared the effects of brief interventions with different education, indirect and imagined contact components on lay people's attitudes. Materials and methods: 401 adult participants were rand...

Abstract Background Extended brief interventions (EBIs) are effective in targeting alcohol misuse in the general population. However, little is known of the effects of EBI in adults with intellectual (also known as learning) disabilities. In this feasibility trial we compared EBI with usual care for alcohol misuse in adults with mild to moderate In...

Introduction Extended brief interventions (EBIs) are effective in targeting alcohol misuse in the general population. However, little is known on the effects of EBI in adults with intellectual (also known as learning disabilities). Objectives In this feasibility trial we compared EBI with usual care for alcohol misuse in adults with mild to modera...

Background: Scores on cognitive screening tools for dementia are associated with premorbid IQ. It has been suggested that screening scores should be adjusted accordingly. However, no study has examined whether premorbid IQ variation affects screening accuracy. Objective: To investigate whether the screening accuracy of a widely used cognitive sc...

People with mental health problems sometimes have the choice of whether or not to disclose this information to others. The decision to disclose or conceal is likely to depend on various factors. In this systematic review, we examined the findings of studies looking at factors affecting adults’ decisions to disclose or conceal a mental health proble...

Recent NHS guidance mandates that positive behavioural support (PBS) should be the approach of choice across settings for those whose behaviour challenges. In this article we argue that more needs to be done to ensure clinical psychology trainees are fit for PBS practice if the discipline is to take a leading role.