Change in newspaper coverage of schizophrenia in Japan over 20-year period

In Japan, schizophrenia was renamed in 2002 to reduce the stigma that people with schizophrenia are dangerous. However there has been little research on the potential anti-stigma effect of renaming. The present study aimed to examine whether portrayals of schizophrenia in newspapers as dangerous have been varied across renaming of the disease. To achieve this goal, newspaper articles containing the previous and new Japanese names for schizophrenia, published in the decades before and after the renaming, were identified through the database of the three largest Japanese national broadsheets. Identified articles were divided into two categories: a negative category, including a subcategory “danger”; and a positive category. Articles containing bipolar disorder were adopted as a control. The ratio of the number of articles on schizophrenia and danger to that of bipolar disorder was analysed as a variable of interest. The trend of this ratio was investigated to examine whether portrayals of schizophrenia changed after renaming. The search identified 4677 articles on schizophrenia, 53.0% of which were categorised as negative and 38.9% as danger. The search identified 525 articles on bipolar disorder, 24.6% of which were categorised as negative and 11.2% as danger. There was an increase of the ratio before schizophrenia was renamed (r = 0.54, p = 0.104), and a significant decrease after renaming (r = − 0.69, p = 0.028). Fisher's r-to-z transformation demonstrated a significant change in the trend of the ratio across renaming (Z = 2.72, p = 0.007). Renaming schizophrenia might be associated with mitigation in potentially stigmatised depiction of schizophrenia associated with violence in newspaper reports.