Attitudes toward Mental Illness among Minority Freshmen in China

Abstract

To explore the status and influencing factors of attitudes toward mental illness among minority freshmen and provide references for mental health education and service assistance in ethnic colleges, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 581 minority freshmen by using Mental Illness Emotional Scale, Stereotype Scale and Social Distance Scale from autumn of 2018 to next spring. The scores of minority freshmen on these scales were significantly higher than the theoretical median, which demonstrated that they did have negative attitudes. There were the significant main effect of nation on the anger and sympathy dimensions of Mental Illness Emotional Scale while the same results were found in the main effect of gender on the danger and suicidal behavior dimensions of Mental Illness Stereotype Scale and the main effect of nation on the dimension of dependence consciousness. Whether relatives or friends are mental illness patients had significant effect on the suicidal behavior dimension of Mental Illness Stereotypes Scale. Overall, attitudes toward mental illness were negative and some mental illness stigma phenomenon were found among minority freshmen; ethnic was an important factor affecting the attitudes of minority freshmen toward mental illness, and the inter-group contact with patients who suffer mental illness in life had a slight impact on the attitudes toward mental illness.