Abstract
Background: Around 30-40% of patients who are attending primary care setting have emotional problems. The majority of these were often remaining unrecognized, misdiagnosed and inappropriately managed. Improving the knowledge and attitude of the health workers especially nurses is important to overcome this problem. Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude and associated factors of nurses towards mental illness in Addis Ababa public hospitals, Ethiopia. Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 12 to May 12, 2014. The data was collected from 423 Nurses using structured Knowledge and attitude questionnaire for health workers, which is designed by National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. Participants were selected by using systematic random sampling methods. Data was entered using Epi-info 7 and analysis was conducted using SPSS 20. Bivariate and Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify variables which have significant association with knowledge and attitude towards mental illness. The level of significance association was determined by AOR with 95% confidence interval and P-value ≤0.05. Results: A total of 400 participants were participated with a response rate of 94.5%, 50% were females. The average age was 31 ± 6.6 years.50% and 44.2% of nurses have adequate knowledge and Favorable attitude towards mental illness respectively. There was significant association between knowledge and profession, working department and taking training. Also sex, educational status, profession, institute of graduation and work experience of respondents were significantly associated with attitude at p<0.05. Conclusion and recommendation: About half of nurse’s appear to have adequate knowledge and less than half of participant have favorable attitude. These unfavorable attitudes may cause certain problems like decrease in health care of person with mental illness. Practice based training at working areas regarding mental health problems need to be given for nurses.
Highlights
Around 30-40% of patients who are attending primary care setting have emotional problems
Practice based training at working areas regarding mental health problems need to be given for nurses
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at United States estimates that 1 in 5 people will experience some sort of mental illness in their lifetime and 1 in 4 people will know someone with mental illness
Summary
Around 30-40% of patients who are attending primary care setting have emotional problems. The majority of these were often remaining unrecognized, misdiagnosed and inappropriately managed. About 450 million people suffer from mental or behavioral disorders worldwide today, mental disorder are widely recognized as a major contributor (14%) to the global burden of disease worldwide [1]. 1 in 4 health services have at least one mental, neurological or behavioral disorder but most of these disorders are neither diagnosed nor treated. The majority of these were often remaining unrecognized, misdiagnosed, and inappropriately managed [3]. According to the World Health Organization the cost of not treating mental illness may be high both in personal and financial terms [3,4]
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