People with a mental illness may be exposed to stigma which, when internalised, negatively influences self-esteem, personal goal attainment and quality of life. Avoiding the use of stigmatising language and using terminology that does not exclude the positive characteristics of the individual may play an important role in challenging stigma. This study involved a mixed method approach to identify the terminology preferences of people with a mental illness in Australia. N = 173 participants were recruited via convenience sampling. The humanistic terms ‘individual’ and ‘person with lived experience’ were identified as the preferred terms. Qualitatively there was a wide variation in how the terms made the respondents think or feel, with only one of the terms – ‘survivor,’ having solely negative themes. When contrasting the two most commonly used clinical terms, ‘client’ was significantly preferred to ‘patient’. The term ‘consumer’ was one of the least preferred terms. This suggests that the use of this term, which is in regular use in Australia, should be reconsidered.

患有精神疾病的人可能会受到污名化，这种污名化后，会对自尊，个人目标达成和生活质量产生负面影响。避免使用侮辱性的语言和使用不排斥个人积极特征的术语，可能会在挑战性污名中发挥重要作用。这项研究涉及一种混合方法，用于确定澳大利亚精神病患者的术语偏爱。通过便利性抽样招募了N = 173名参与者。人文术语“个人”和“有经验的人”被确定为首选术语。在质量上，这些术语使受访者的想法或感受有很大不同，只有一个术语“幸存者”仅具有负面主题。在对比两个最常用的临床术语时，“客户”明显优于“患者”。术语“消费者”是最不受欢迎的术语之一。这表明应该重新考虑在澳大利亚经常使用的该术语的使用。