Attitudes towards people with mental illness among psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, involved family members and the general population in a large city in Guangzhou, China

Abstract

PurposeStigma towards people with mental illness is believed to be widespread in low and middle income countries.MethodsThis study assessed the attitudes towards people with mental illness among psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, involved family members of patients in a psychiatric facility and the general public using a standard 43-item survey (N = 535). Exploratory factor analysis identified four distinctive attitudes which were then compared using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) among the four groups, all with ties to the largest psychiatric facility in Guangzhou, China, adjusting for sociodemographic differences.ResultsFour uncorrelated factors expressed preferences for 1) community-based treatment, social integration and a biopsychosocial model of causation, 2) direct personal relationships with people with mental illness, 3) a lack of fear and positive views of personal interactions with people with mental illness, 4) disbelief in superstitious explanations of mental illness. Statistically significant differences favored community-based treatment and biopsychosocial causation (factor 1) among professional groups (psychiatrists and nurses) as compared with family members and the general public (p < 0.001); while family members, unexpectedly, showed far weaker personal preferences for direct personal relationships with people with mental illness than all three other groups (p < 0.001).ConclusionBoth psychiatrists and nurses showed greater support for social integration and biopsychosocial understandings of mental illness than the lay public, most likely because of their training and experience, while family members showed the least positive attitudes towards direct personal relationships with people with mental illness. These findings suggest support for a more extensive, formal system of care that gives family members some distance from the problems of their relatives and support in their care.

Female Students’ Attitude toward Mental Illness in Qassim University, KSA

“…Many studies showed that attitudes about mental illness are clearly linked to various demographic variables such as age and education (26,27,28) , The current study found that there is no correlation between the attitudes of students and demographic variables of age and parent's education. As well there is no statistically significant differences were detected between the medical and non-medical students regarding their age, residence and mother's education which support the homogeneity of the study sample.…”

Witchcraft and Biopsychosocial Causes of Mental Illness

“…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).…”

Emotional Empathy, Social Distance and Attitude of Police Officers towards People with Mental Illness

“…Previous researchers studied attitude towards people with mental illness among clergy (Igbinomwanhia, James, & Omoaregba, 2013); medical students (Altindag, Yanik, Ucok, Alptekin, & Ozkan, 2006;Elizur & Rosenheim, 1982 undergraduates (Shruti, Singh, & Kataria, 2016); general public (Yuan, Abdin, Picco, Vaingankar, Shahwan, Jeyagurunathan, & Subramaniam, 2016); psychiatrict/psychiatric nurses (Sun, Fan, Nie, Zhang, Huang, He, & Rosenheck, 2014).…”

“…Attitude towards people with mental illness is studied in many regions of the world such as Chicago (Watson, Corrigan, & Ottati, 2004); China (Sun, Fan, Nie, Zhang, Huang, He, & Rosenheck, 2014); Hong Kong (China) (Todor, 2013); India (Poreddi, Thimmaiah, & Math, 2015); Israel (Kimhi, Barak, Gutman, Melamed, Zohar, & Barak, 1998); Saudi Arabia (Amira, 2016 (Igbinomwanhia, James, & Omoaregba, 2013).…”