Attitudes Toward Mental Illness and Changes Associated with a Brief Educational Intervention for Medical and Nursing Students in Nigeria

Abstract

Brief educational interventions may alter some stigmatizing negative attitudes toward mental illness in healthcare trainees in low- and middle-income countries.

Witchcraft and Biopsychosocial Causes of Mental Illness

“…Although the construct validity of the factor structure of the instrument was confirmed in previous studies (Iheanacho et al, 2014) and evaluated through the means of CFA in an earlier study (Stefanovics et al, 2015), more extensive validating evidence would be desirable.…”

“…In the analysis of the questionnaire in a previous study (Iheanacho et al, 2014), exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation was used for item reduction and identified the four factors described above. The structure was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the data set used in the present study (Stefanovics et al, 2015).…”

“…Attitudes toward people with depression or anxiety disorder may be more accepting than those toward schizophrenia or other severe mental illnesses or personality disorders (Kingdon et al, 2004;Munro and Baker, 2007). On the other hand, the items included in our survey have been used in previous studies (Iheanacho et al, 2014) and have been found to be relevant for health care providers. In addition, professionals surveyed have found the instrument to be simple and easy to understand, facilitating its use in natural settings in which only a brief instrument can be used and in which technical knowledge of differences between specific mental illnesses cannot be assumed.…”

“…This instrument has been used initially in several settings in Nigeria (Iheanacho et al, 2014), China (Sun et al, 2014), and the United States (Chiles et al, under review).…”

“…The established factor structure for this survey (Iheanacho et al, 2014;Stefanovics et al, 2015) includes four factors: 1) interest in or willingness to socialize with people diagnosed with mental illness, 2) favorable attitudes toward normalization of role functioning in the lives of people with mental illness, 3) belief in supernatural causes of mental illness (e.g., witchcraft, curses, God's punishment, possession of evil spirit), and 4) endorsement of aspects of the biopsychosocial model of mental illness (brain disease, physical abuse, biological factors). Individual items and factors and item weights have been previously published (Iheanacho et al, 2014).…”