Editor Spotlight: Eleni Petkari

Eleni Petkari is an Associate Professor at the School of Psychology and Speech Therapy, at the University of Malaga, Spain. Of Greek origin, she has held academic and research positions in several institutions across countries in Europe and Middle East (UAE, Cyprus, UK, Spain). She is specialized in mental health and illness, focusing on quality of life in psychosis and stigma towards mental illness. She has taken part in several related research projects and published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in high impact journals to the present.

Here she shares the inspiration to pursue this research focus, her experience working across multiple countries and the insights this provided regarding different attitudes towards mental health, and her experience collaborating with PLOS One as an Academic Editor.

You specialize in the field of stigma in mental health and quality of life in psychosis? What drew you to this field of research? Can you explain to us why this research is important to you?

This starts with a personal anecdote. When I was a third-year student of Psychology I spent a summer volunteering in a very unique psychiatric hospital (the Greek asylum of Leros) with people with chronic mental illness that had spent there almost their whole life, and were denominated “the rejected”, as no family would seek for them. This was for me the starting point for reflecting on how stigma can affect these people’s recovery process and how effective and humanized services actually do make the difference in terms of quality of life.

Since then, I focused my professional, academic and research career on mental illnesses, with my research being mainly on the determinants of quality of life, and on exploring how psychological interventions may contribute to the improvement of this important patient-reported outcome for people with psychosis.  At the same time, I believe that the change in the society usually starts from its youngest members, thus I have also focused on stigma and ways to tackle it in university students. I do believe that there is still a lot to do for providing people with severe mental illness a better life, and also for creating a stigma-free society, and research should provide the tools for doing so.

You have held positions in universities across a variety of countries. Did you find the attitudes to mental health differed between them, and if so, how did that impact your research?

Indeed, there are huge differences in public stigma between societies, depending on the cultural beliefs that shape such attitudes and on the contact with people with mental illness that is held in everyday life. In this sense, there are cultural contexts that are based on explanatory models of mental illness that attribute a different amount of responsibility within the person for their condition (of suffering from mental illness) and also put a different amount of focus on the role of family as the main provider of care. For instance, in Middle eastern or Eastern Mediterranean contexts religion is key in the process of shaping attitudes, and family values are very strong, thus family members are responsible for looking after the person in need. At the same time, opportunities to interact with people with mental illnesses outside the family context are less compared to the more Western contexts, as the person with a mental illness interacts mainly with their family members due to shame and fear to be exposed. That provides the rest of the members of a society with less opportunities for learning how the person is behind the label of mental illness and eventually creates a distance and an irrational fear towards the unknown.

Together with that, the cultural context can determine the expression of more or less fear towards people with severe mental illnesses, such as psychoses, or more or less empathy towards people with common mental illnesses, such as depression or anxiety. Another example of how societal factors may affect stigma is obvious through studies in the post-pandemic era, where depression and anxiety are thankfully normalized and thus more acceptable, whereas psychoses are still surrounded by the same myths and provoke the same negative reactions.

Personally, in terms of research, the experience across countries provided me with the opportunity to gain a prismatic view towards stigma and its determinants and somewhat escape from the Western-centric way of thought we, European researchers, usually have. This made me more aware of potential factors that may play a role in the conception of mental illness and the stigma processes. These factors may be present in a person though coming from outside, that is, the cultural and societal context they grew up and live in. Such awareness is key when proposing anti-stigma interventions, as these should be tailormade to the context they are mean to be applied.

What motivates you to contribute as an Academic Editor at PLOS One? Is there any advice you would give to authors submitting to the journal?

My motivation for joining PLOS One as an Academic Editor derives from the journal’s characteristics, mainly its interdisciplinary nature and the fact of being open access. I believe that in science we can benefit from searching ways of joining forces when it comes to finding solutions to problems, and that is what interdisciplinary means to me. Thus, targeting a broad audience of researchers and professionals enriches both research and practice, and this is key for a journal that means to contribute to science. Also, open access means that research products are readily available to anyone interested. Importantly, PLOS One allows access to the review process for each article when published, which makes procedures transparent and increases scientific rigor. Importantly, through my personal experience as an Academic Editor I had the chance to observe how effectively the editorial team works towards finding solutions when needed, and this motivates me to continue with this role. 

My advice for the authors is to produce manuscript that they themselves would enjoy reading in terms of strong theoretical rationale, clear and rigorous methodological procedures and meaningful discussions for research and practice.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by contributors are solely those of individual contributors, and not necessarily those of PLOS.