A clear message needs to be given that behaviour of this kind has no place in our communities

Mary Weir, NSF Scotland

The study, which was undertaken by the Nuffield Centre for Community Care Studies, National Schizophrenia Fellowship (NSF) and Scottish Users' Network (Sun), interviewed 330 people from across the country.

It found that teenagers were most likely to be the perpetrators of harassment (36%), followed by neighbours (31%) and families (21%).

More than 90% of the respondents said the harassment had an adverse affect on their health and a similar number said they were being marked out for abuse because of their condition.

Almost 70% of those experiencing problems tried to take some sort of action against the perpetrators and 34% said they ended up moving house to escape the abuse.

Education plea

Mary Weir, chief executive of NSF (Scotland) said the research provided "clear evidence" that people with serious mental health problems were being subjected to "distressing and unjustifiable" behaviour.

She said: "To change things, we need dramatic improvements in public understanding of mental health.

"A clear message needs to be given that behaviour of this kind has no place in our communities."

Professor Alison Petch, director of the Nuffield Centre for Community Care Studies at Glasgow University, said: "For the first time in Scotland we have a detailed account of the harassment experienced by individuals with mental health problems and how this differs from the experiences of others living in the same communities."

The two main suggestions from those surveyed for preventing harassment were increased levels of education in schools and a positive change in public attitudes.