Perception and attitude of health care professionals about mentally ill patients

Abstract

Objective: To study the knowledge of mental illness and assess the perception and attitude of health care professionals towards mentally ill patients using a questionnaire. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted by department of Pharmacology, Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College attached to Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research from April to May 2016. The protocol was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. After obtaining written informed consent a predesigned, validated questionnaire was used to assess the attitude and knowledge of Health Care Professionals towards mental illness. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics. Results: Out of 303 approached 287 gave consent to participate in the study. There were 170 male (59.2%) and 117 female (40.8%) participants. Regarding knowledge and attitude towards mentally ill patients 83.96% agreed that psychological counselling can help the patients to return to their normal life. Only 31.3% strongly agreed to have the knowledge to use talking therapy techniques and most of them (43.9%) were of the opinion that they require training course to find out which type of talking therapy is required clinically. They also disagreed to possess sufficient knowledge regarding group psychotherapy (41.11%) as well steps and techniques of group psychotherapy (42.50%). Conclusion: In the present study the health care professionals expressed to have knowledge regarding the techniques and skills used in counselling and psychotherapy but were lacking clinical experience in executing them. Keywords: Health care professionals, Mentally ill patients, Knowledge, Attitude.