Knowledge and Awareness Regarding Mental Health and Barriers to Seeking Psychiatric Consultation in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The Middle Eastern region, in general and Saudi Arabia, in specific, suffers from a large burden of mental illness. People's positive attitudes and correct perceptions towards mental illness and their willingness to seek help when needed can help in reducing such burden. To determine the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of the Saudi population toward mental illness and health services and to understand the barriers that affect the people's willingness to seek psychiatric help when needed. A convenient sample of Saudi population of either sex was included in the study. A structured questionnaire was used to assess knowledge, attitudes and perceptions on mental health and the willingness to seek psychiatric help through multi-approach methods. Logistic regression was used to determine factors that were associated with not willing to seek psychiatric help, adjusting for other factors in the model. A total of 5644 participants (49.5% males) participated. About 87% were unaware about psychiatric services available in the kingdom, 85% reported that social factors were responsible for mental illnesses, about a quarter of them reported that they wouldn't seek psychiatric help when needed and about half felt ashamed about it. Male gender, >20 years age group, not knowing whether a relative is suffering from mental illness and not knowing about the services provided by psychiatric health services in the kingdom were significantly associated with not willing to seek psychiatrist consultation when needed. A number of gaps were identified in the people's knowledge about mental illness. Anti-stigma campaigns and evidence-based mental health educational programs should be implemented to enable people to reduce stigma and seek early mental health care.

Mental Health Awareness Phone Polling Survey: Focus on Community Knowledge, Attitude and Practice, Saudi Arabia

“…Regarding SD data, the proportion of male participants was more than females, and most of them were adults with bachelor degree from three largest advanced regions of Saudi Arabia. These findings support partially the results of other studies [30,53]. Alosaimi, et al (2019) studied the public (n=416 participants) awareness, beliefs, and attitudes of bipolar disorder in Saudi Arabia and reported suboptimal awareness concerning bipolar disorder [30].…”

“…Psychotherapy is not commonly used in Saudi MH care setting because most forms are westernized models which are culturally not accepted and therapist encounters some other barriers as found in some studies [64,65].In Saudi context, a larger population with or without a MH problem and physical diseases consult religious faith healers and also auto-medicate/treat themselves using traditional herbs and roqaya and drinking ruqyarecited water, i.e., reciting holy Quran and blowing on themselves and into water [66]. Community participants perceived several barriers including high cost and unawareness of psychiatric services, no MH clinics in public general hospitals, unavailability of beds, being ashamed and stigma accessing to mental health hospitals and related services in Saudi Arabia [30,53] supporting the findings of other studies [67,68]. Overall, patients' access to MH services is a global challenge, and 15-21% youth with single mental disorder, only 33% have access to MH services in Canada [69].…”

“…According to this polling survey, a quarter of responders (23%) with MDs felt shame seeing a MH professional, and more than 62% (pooled) felt socially excluded from the society. These finding inform that stigma against mental illnesses and multiple stakeholders and MH settings is perceptible in Saudi society and, hence, continuing anti-stigma campaigns are needed targeting public at large [3,30,53]. It is globally accepted that stigma against public with MH problems and psychotropic drugs has wider implications and disadvantages including greater contribution to the burden of diseases to the society and exchequers, delay in contacting health professionals, and development of MH services, and poor outcome [2,16,17,30,53].…”

“…Evidently inappropriate reporting about mental patients and MH hospitals by social media negatively impacts the image of mental patients [2,30,53,69], and about 45% of the participants (versus 40%) agreed with this notion. This MHL gap need training programs targeting public and at the same time social media personnel need not to show negative images of patients suffering from mental disorders, hospitals and MH professionals [69].…”

“…Evidently, MHL enhancing programs also help to increase MH awareness of public, mental health professionals, students and teachers in schools and other health practitioners across the world. The identical literature is scanty in the eastern world including kingdom of Saudi Arabia [3,4,30,53]. To our knowledge, probably this is the first phone MH polling survey of community in Saudi Arabia.…”