143 6 DISCLOSURE AND SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYABILITY AND WELL-BEING AT WORK fully protect against stigma and discrimination either. Approximately half of those who did not disclose, still had experienced social rejection and negative career consequences, and had felt embarrassed. It is possible that people had disclosed MI to others in their environment, and that this caused social rejection and embarrassment. Previous research shows that fear of being stigmatized plays an important role in the disclosure decision itself, both in military and civilian samples (24, 27, 28, 33, 41). The current study indicates that this fear is realistic, as those who disclosed, indeed experienced stigma and discrimination. The experienced stigma and discrimination highlight the importance of destigmatizing interventions for well-being at work and sustainable employability. These interventions should target three groups: (1) Supervisors: As stigma and discrimination was frequently experienced by those who disclosed, interventions should target the supervisor to educate them about MI to take away possible stigma, and to help them to better support workers with MI (48). (2) Workers with MI: the current study showed that both disclosure and non-disclosure can lead to stigma and discrimination. Previous research shows that the disclosure message and timing are important contributors for possible positive or negative outcomes of disclosure (22). Therefore, to increase chances that disclosure will lead to work-adjustments, and to help workers to shield themselves from stigma and discrimination, disclosure decision aids could be used as they assist workers in making a well-considered disclosure decision. Additionally, support with disclosure decisions can reduce experienced self-stigma (50-52). (3) The public: As those who did not disclose to their supervisor, still experienced stigma and discrimination, this suggests that the public-stigma surrounding MI should also be targeted. A meta-analysis on interventions targeting public-stigma showed that both education and contact between people with and without MI (in the right context, e.g. no power differences) have positive effects on reducing stigma (53). Strengths and limitations To the knowledge of the authors, this study was the first study to directly test the association between disclosure and sustainable employability and well-being at work. A strength of this study was that several measures of sustainable employability and wellbeing at work were used, combining traditional and novel measures. Additionally, the study included a large sample, and included participants that had not disclosed, a group that is usually hard to study. However, there were also limitations which should be mentioned. First, the current study used a cross-sectional design, meaning that no conclusions about causality in the association between disclosure experiences and sustainable employability and wellbeing at work can be drawn. Outcome bias could partially explain that the majority
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