Knowledge, Attitude And Behaviour Towards Mental Illness Among Non-Psychiatric Clinicians In A Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Aim of the study-To assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour towards mental illness among non-psychiatric clinicians in a tertiary care teaching hospital and to test the primary hypothesis that doctors who hold more negative attitudes towards people with mental illness will have more discriminatory behaviours.

Material and Methods- This was a cross sectional study which was conducted on post graduate resident doctors and consultants of various medical faculties of Medical College, Baroda. Each participant was given MAKS (Mental Health Knowledge Schedule), MICA (Mental Illness Clinician’s Attitude Scale) and RIBS (Reported and Intended Behaviour Scale) along with the socio demographic data sheet for age, sex, medical speciality, years of experience to be filled in their respective departments and two reminders were given for filling the data sheets at an interval of two days each. Those who did not return the data sheets after two reminders were considered dropouts.

Results- The study enrolled 200 participants out of which 147 were resident doctors and 53 were consultants. The mean score for MAKS, MICA-4 AND RIBS were 24 +/-3, 46 +/-9 and 15 +/-3 respectively. Consultant doctors had a more negative attitude towards mental illness as compared to resident doctors.  There was a negative correlation between MICA-4 score and RIBS score i.e. People with more negative attitude towards mental illness are likely to have less favourable intended behavior towards people with mental illness.

Conclusion-From this study we can conclude that a significant proportion of the doctors still lack knowledge about mental illnesses and still hold a negative attitude towards mental illness which demonstrates the need of mental health awareness programs aimed at doctors.