Abstract
Aims: This quantitative study investigated the attitudes toward people with mental illness among professionals working in Ndera neuropsychiatric hospital in Rwanda. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are differences in attitudes between direct care providers and supportive professionals towards the people with mental illness. Methods: The Community Attitudes towards Mentally Ill (CAMI) scale (Dear & Taylor, 1982) was used. A total of 72 members of the staff, including 55 directly involved staff members and 17 support staff members, participated in the survey. Results: The mean score is 3.98 for authoritarianism, 3.75 for social restrictiveness, 3.88 for benevolence, and 3.87 for community mental health ideology attitudes subscales. There is no statistically significant difference between the two groups in their overall scale scores. However, directly involved staff members had a greater mean score on many individual items (P≥0.05). Demographic variables did not account for the variance within the two groups (P≥0.05). 87.27% of our respondents think that staff members, patients and family members can be involved in the decision making process and 70.59% appreciate that it is good to involve staff, patients and family relatives in this process. Negative attitudes towards people with mental illness admitted to Ndera neuropsychiatric hospital are also present, even though the majority of our respondents have favorable attitudes towards the people with mental illness. There is the need to explore the influence of staff attitudes on the delivery of high quality healthcare.
Highlights
Results from the Levene's Test for Equality of Variances indicate that the scores in the group of directly involved staff members do not vary much more than the scores of the support staff members (p>0.05)
Secondary it was hypothesized that directly involved professionals would endorse lower levels of mental health stigma than support staff; that directly involved professional would have a stronger belief in the need to include consumers in the decision-making process about their future than the supportive staff workers; and that professional background variables have an effect on the staff’s attitudes toward mentally ill patients
A summary interpretation of the main findings in this paper reinforces the assumption that negative attitudes towards people with mental illness received in Ndera neuropsychiatric hospital are in existence, even though the majority have favorable attitudes toward the mentally ill
Summary
Republic of Congo to the west, Uganda to the North, Burundi to the south, and Tanzania to the east. It enjoys a mild climate, with an average temperature of 64°F. In 1994 Rwanda experienced genocide against the Tutsi population, during which almost 1,000,000 people were killed in only 100 days. These events psychologically affected Rwandans and created several problems for individuals, their families and their surroundings. In Rwanda, therapeutic rituals are often addressed to Ryangombe, a divinity who is the source of peace, love, and fertility
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