How researchers refer to individuals with schizophrenia: person-first and identity-first language in academic papers

Dino, Maria, Koga, Gabriela, Yokoji, Amanda, Haguiara, Bernardo, Pacheco, Isadora, Ziebold, Carolina, Bressan, Rodrigo, Crossley, Nicolas, Orsi, José, Thornicroft, Graham, Slade, Mike, Mari, Jair de Jesus, Evans-Lacko, Sara ORCID: 0000-0003-4691-2630, Andrade, Mário César Rezende and Gadelha, Ary (2025) How researchers refer to individuals with schizophrenia: person-first and identity-first language in academic papers. Schizophrenia, 11 (1). ISSN 2754-6993

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Abstract

Stigma associated with schizophrenia has been well-documented in both society and healthcare settings. However, the use of stigmatizing language in research papers remains largely unexplored. This study examined how researchers refer to schizophrenia in peer-reviewed articles, aiming to characterize the descriptive terms used to refer to individuals with schizophrenia and assess the adoption of person-first language. We conducted an electronic search on PubMed using the MeSH term “schizophrenia” and randomly selected 500 articles. Descriptive terminology was categorized as neutral (e.g., “schizophrenia patients”), person-first (e.g., “person with schizophrenia”), or identity-first (e.g., “schizophrenic patient”). Reference terms were assessed based on their alignment with a person-first perspective. Of the 500 studies, 475 (95%) included at least one term referring to people affected by schizophrenia. Among them, 238 (50.1%) used identity-first terms, 228 (48%) used person-first terms, and 91 (18.2%) employed both. Over time, the use of identity-first terms decreased. The decline in identity-first terms over time suggests a positive impact of the person-first movement. Despite these encouraging findings, our data also indicate that there is still room for improvement in reducing the use of identity-first terms. We propose recommendations for researchers to promote less stigmatizing language.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025
Divisions:	Care Policy and Evaluation Centre
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Date Deposited:	01 Dec 2025 12:54
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2025 06:54
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/130376

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