Table 3 Quotes summary

Acceptability

Potential benefits

“I have improved my understanding, as a useful tool, I no longer expressed myself with my colleagues calling patients by their disorders but by their names”

“What I liked the most were the videos… they showed that it is possible to almost fully recovered, a functional recovery, which is something that we don’t usually see, at least in our training”

Satisfaction with the intervention

“I think the course was good, but I think it would be better to extend it, but because our time is limited, I think it was adjusted to what we can do, with what we can work, and I like it, it inspired me lots”

“I think the content was good… in general I think it was complete, the examples were very illustrative, I think the quality of the course was very good”

“it was very approachable (course facilitator), I think was able to transmit that energy of wanting to make a change, and that is something important because is something that can be transmitted”

Demand

Motivating factors

“I did not have any idea about this subject, and I wanted to learn about it, that’s what encouraged me”

“Indecisiveness maybe, boredom, lack of interest, because when things are not mandatory, and we have the option of leave early, we give priority to other things and no to our education”

Practicality

“The time, it was very little, and it was difficult to come, because there was not that much support for us to be allowed to come because of the schedule of our activities”

Integration

“Yes, yes, definitely I think this course should be mandatory… I think this is something could complement our training”

Mediators

Recognition of own negative attitudes

“It helped us identify how is that we stigmatise them (patients) and how us can treat them badly, and how many times we limited them because our beliefs and not that much because of their illness”

“it really made us be more conscious about how we stigmatise our own patients, and helped us realise how to avoid, or how to improve this, because many times is the stigma related to mental illness what cause more damage to the patient”

Reflection about the impact of stigma

“it really made us be more conscious about how we stigmatise our own patients, and helped us realise how to avoid, or how to improve this, because many times is the stigma related to mental illness what cause more damage to the patient”

Ability to make a change

“To realise that there are people that have started to get interested in making a change is something that gets my attention, because what I have been usually told that things are like this, this is the way it should be and is always going to be like this. Therefore, to hear that there is someone else who thinks the opposite, is like an incentive for me”

Unintended pathways

“We were really interested, so interested that we are looking into developing the stigma project”