Attitude of Senior Secondary Level Students towards Mental Illness

Abstract


 Introduction: Mental disorders are recognized as a major contributor (12%) to the global burden of disease and are among the most stigmatizing conditions worldwide. The lack of awareness is very evident in Nepal. In this study, we aimed to learn about the attitude of senior secondary level students towards mental illness.
 Material And Method: Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted amongst senior secondary level students to investigate about their attitude towards mental illness. We recruited a sample of 138 students from classes 11 and 12 from a conveniently sampled school of Dharan Sub-metropolitan. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit the information.
 Results: Our study group consisted of 53.6% females while 46.4% were males. Equal numbers of students were sampled from each grades with their ages ranging from 14-18 years. The mean for total of BMI scale was 52 and the standard deviation was observed to be 12.810. The T-tests revealed males had more negative attitude than the female students which was statistically significant with a p value of 0.048. Our study revealed that there was a significant negative correlation between the attitude scores and the grade the respondents were studying and also between the gender of the respondent, father’s and mother’s education level and in students having a family member or neighbor suffer from mental illness.
 Conclusion: Most of the students in the senior secondary level were found to have negative attitudes towards mental illness though no any variables were found to be contributing towards such perceptions from our research.

Attitude towards mental illness and seeking professional help among pharmacy students in Yemen

“…The study results showed differences in attitudes between males and females, as about 66.7% of the female group had a positive attitude towards people with MIs. This finding was consistent with that of the Nepalese study (Nepal et al, 2020) but not in line with previous studies conducted in Saudi Arabia (Alsahali, 2021) and Pakistan (Javed et al, 2006). This variation with a study in Pakistan could be due to the fact that it evaluated both university students and…”

“…Attitudes of adults and adolescents might not be the same. In the Nepalese study (Nepal et al, 2020), the data suggested that sociodemographic factors, such as age, sex, educational level, or previous exposure to patients with mental illnesses, were related to attitudes towards mental illness and those suffering from it, as shown in this study as well.…”

“…The study results showed that having a relative with a mental illness contributes to a positive attitude concerning mental illness, as 61.3% of those who had a relative with a mental illness had a positive attitude. However, no such difference in attitudes was found in a Nepalese study (Nepal et al, 2020), indicating that high-school students have less stigma towards a person with a mental illness. Having a relative with a mental illness might be distressing and embarrassing for a school-level student, resulting in a negative attitude towards mental illness (Tesfamariam et al, 2018).…”

Knowledge, attitudes, and uptake of mental health services by secondary school students in Gweru, Zimbabwe

“…The display of negative views is partly attributed to the idea that students did not have information about whom to contact if they had depression and were very aware of the stigma of going to see a “professional” ( Burke et al, 2008 ). Nepal et al (2020) noted that the majority of the students studying at the senior secondary level were found to exhibit negative attitudes toward mental illness. Although no variables were found to be contributing toward such perceptions, Sartorius (2007) assert that stigma is one factor that tends to promote negative attitude toward people suffering from mental illness due to the lack of knowledge and misinformation, which subsequently leads to prejudice and discriminatory tendencies.…”

“…Education stakeholders such as school teachers, parents as well as mental health professionals should aim at equipping children with appropriate knowledge on mental illness ( Nepal et al, 2020 ), as this would improve their attitude toward mental illness ( Jyothi et al, 2015 ), and hence the subsequent uptake of related services. Thus, the implementation of attitude enhancing programs by launching anti-stigmatizing programs and providing appropriate information to secondary-level school students has been shown to yield positive results ( Del Casale et al, 2013 ).…”