Objective: The clergy in sub-Saharan Africa play a major role in the care and pathways to orthodox mental health services of the mentally ill. Their attitudes concerning mental illnesses would influence community mental health intervention efforts. This study aimed to determine the attitudes of clergy towards persons with mental illness. Method: A cross-sectional survey of clergy (n= 107) of the Christian and Muslim faiths was conducted, using a socio-demographic questionnaire and the 40-item Community Attitudes towards Mental Illness (CAMI) scale. Results: Stigmatizing attitudes were evident among members of the clergy surveyed. Most (71.1%) believed the mentally ill were different from other persons, while 68.2% were of the opinion that the mentally ill should be controlled like children. Over 80% of respondents were not comfortable with the idea of the mentally ill living in their vicinity and wanted mental health hospitals situated out of residential areas. Almost half of respondents (45.8%) were uncomfortable with women who were once mentally ill baby-sitting and 63.2% agreed that our mental hospitals seem more like prisons than where the mentally ill can be cared for. Conclusion: Negative attitudes towards the mentally ill were widespread among the clergy sampled. Mental health professionals need to take proactive steps to improve the mental health knowledge of the clergy which may facilitate their roles in the pathway to mental health care.
Oral complaints received are frequent and numerate with limited palliative action rendered. Attaching dentists to psychiatric hospitals and regular training of psychiatric nurses on oral care delivery are recommended to comprehensively cater for the oral health problems of psychiatric in-patients.
Background:Missed appointments are common in psychiatric practice. It compromises quality of care, results in poor treatment outcomes and drains financial resources. In Nigeria, where mental health services are poorly organized, missed appointments and its resultant consequences may be burdensome.Aim:This study sought to determine the prevalence and factors (sociodemographic and clinical) associated with missed clinic appointments at a regional psychiatric hospital.Subjects and Methods:A study on a cohort of patients attending the Outpatient Clinics for the first time between June and September 2011 was conducted. We interviewed each participant at their first presentation then tracked through case records to determine adherence to scheduled first clinic appointments after 4 weeks. A questionnaire was used in eliciting sociodemographic characteristics, clinical variables, and patient/caregiver satisfaction with treatment. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data and inferential statistics to test associations using the SPSS 16.Results:Three hundred and ten patients were recruited over the study period. The prevalence of missed first appointment was 32.6% (101/310). Participants who were single (P = 0.04), living alone (P < 0.01) or aggressive (P < 0.01) were more likely to miss their first appointment. However, having received previous treatment for a psychiatric illness (P = 0.02) and having comorbidity (P = 0.05) was associated with less likelihood to miss a first appointment. A binary logistic regression analysis showed that having received previous treatment independently predicted a less likelihood to miss first appointment (P = 0.03).Conclusion:Quite a proportion (32.6%) of patients attending outpatient clinics miss scheduled clinic appointments. Receiving previous psychiatric care predicted adherence to scheduled appointment.
Background:Undetected and unaddressed anxiety negatively affects performance in clinical learning environments.Aim:The aim was to investigate the anxiety provoking situations in clinical dental care delivery among students of preclinical and clinical years and house officers.Subjects and Methods:A 38-item modified Moss and McManus clinical anxiety questionnaire, general health questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) and the Zung self-rating anxiety scale were the data collection tools.Results:Of the 84 recruited, 79 completed the study giving 94.0% (79/84) response rate. The median age of the participants was 25 years with 50.6% (40/79) being 20-25 years. Gender distribution revealed that males constituted 60.8% (48/79) of the participants. House officers constituted 29.1% (23/79), clinical students 36.7% (29/79), and preclinical students 34.2 (27/79) of the participants. The top anxiety provoking situations using the modified Moss and McManus clinical anxiety questionnaire were extracting wrong tooth 3.24 (1.06), inability to pass examination 3.32 (1.01), achieving examination requirement 3.19 (1.01), fracturing a tooth 3.08 (0.98) and accidental pulp exposure 2.96 (1.04). Getting diagnosis wrong, help in faint episode, not developing radiograph properly and coping with children were the anxiety provoking situations that showed statistically significant difference in the 3 studied training stages of dentistry. Bonferroni post-hoc analysis significant difference was in the preclinical and clinical students’ pair for getting diagnosis wrong, not developing radiograph properly and coping with children while house officers/clinical students and house officers/preclinical students’ pairs were for help in faint episode. Overall, 2.5% (2/79) had severe, 69.6% (55/79) moderate, 26.6% (21/79) mild clinical anxiety while 1 (1.3%) of the participants expressed no clinical anxiety.Conclusion:Data from this study revealed that the clinical anxiety of moderate severity was prevalent among the studied dental healthcare students. The anxiety-provoking situations were also found to be majorly similar in preclinical, clinical and post-graduation clinical stages of dental training stages in Nigeria.
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