For people suffering from mental health problems, stigma is a highly belittling and dignity-damaging attribute, given that it involves stereotyping, prejudiced reactions and discriminatory social behaviour. The media play a key role in this respect, given that coverage of mental health impacts the health and social treatment of those affected. For this reason, the conference "Stigma, mental health and the media", organised by the University Institute for Patient Care and the UIC Barcelona's Health Innovation in Health Policy Classroom, brought together health professionals and others from the world of communication to analyse how mental health is covered in the media and reflect on whether it can counteract stigma and contribute to improving the treatment of those affected. 

The director of the UIC Barcelona Institute for Patient Care, Boi Ruiz, was tasked with opening the conference which was moderated by psychologist, journalist and lecturer Sílvia Coppulo from the Faculty of Communication Sciences.

The meeting involved two round tables: the first with communication professionals with extensive experience in the health information sector, while the second round table was comprised of mental health professionals. 

The first panel, entitled "How we manage mental health information", showed that information professionals need more training on mental health to be able to manage communication correctly. Journalist Ricard Aparicio, specialist in the dissemination of health information, stressed the change of paradigm, in which information on mental health is increasingly visible, and explained that “stigma is fought with data”. On the other hand, the director of Catalunya Ràdio's news services and lecturer at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at UIC Barcelona, Francesc Cano, spoke of the two main objectives of the Audiovisual Media Corporation: not to stigmatise, and to normalise. “We will achieve the first objective by offering quality information, and the second, by creating quality entertainment and quality fiction”, he said. In addition, Susanna Quadrado, a journalist from La Vanguardia specialising in health stated that "committed and proactive journalism” is needed as part of the solution, and concluded that “we must let the people affected speak for themselves and review our prejudices as journalists”. Head of content at the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia (CAC), Mònica Gasol, explained the recommendations they propose to normalise discourse surrounding mental health and avoid stigmatisation, while the psychologist and collaborator in various media, Gemma Altell, remarked that professionals working in mental health should have a much more fluid relationship with the media.

Titled “Does the correct management of information help how those affected are treated?”, the second panel highlighted the key role played by the media in combating stigma and also reflected on the difficulty of finding the balance between trivialisation and causing panic. Connie Capdevila, member of the Board of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia, stressed the great power of the media and defended the need to avoid using negative expressions to refer to those affected, as well as making diagnoses outside of a clinical setting. Child and adolescent psychiatrist Montse Dolz said that the way people relate to the media is conditioned by fear, and stressed that “we must emphasise attitudes of care, as well as enhancing skills in health and research”. Psychiatrist Iluminada Corripio stated that we must “continue to further our knowledge and listen to the patient throughout their recovery”, explaining that humanistic intervention is being reconciled with medical intervention. Psychiatrist Gemma Parramon, vice president of the Catalan Society for Psychiatry and Mental Health, also spoke of how self-stigma worsens the person's medical treatment and remarked that the best way to break the stigma is for the person affected to be able to explain their experience of overcoming in their own words.

The conference drew to a close with a talk by the dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Rebeca Pardo, who spoke about the visual narratives surrounding the illness and their relevance.