Positive Attitude: An Essential Element for Effective Care of People with Mental Illnesses

Abstract

It is well known that attitudes influence behavior, and attitudes toward people with mental illnesses have been described as negative, stigmatizing, uninformed, and fearful. The general public view people with mental illnesses as dangerous, prone to violence, unpredictable, and in some measure responsible for their illnesses. Health care professionals share these attitudes to a surprising extent, which compromises their ability to deliver competent, compassionate care. Nursing students' perceptions of people with mental illnesses are reflective of those held by the general public. The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine whether a curriculum that embeds psychiatric nursing principles in a course focused on care of people with chronic illnesses and uses specific fear-reduction teaching strategies, would have a positive effect on students' attitudes toward people with mental illnesses. Using an adaptation of Yucker's attitude scale, a test of nursing students' (n = 38) attitudes before and after completion of the course was conducted. Students' attitudes were significantly more positive at the completion of the course. The findings suggest that exposure to factual information about mental illnesses, the opportunity to interact with people with mental illnesses, emphasis on treatment options, and use of fear-reduction strategies positively affected students' attitudes toward people with mental illnesses.

Nurses' Attitudes Toward Using of Patients' Physical Restraint At Psychiatric Hospitals In Baghdad

“…Attitudes toward physical restraint can effect on nurses' performance and behaviour. Especially, that psychiatric patients and illness are associated with the stigma and discrimination of mental illness which may expressed also by professionals and the general public (9) . Getting in touch with psychiatric patients, and getting knowledge can help in replacing the myths with facts, in which stigma has decreased and affect the attitudes positively (10) .…”