Attitudes of Dental Interns Towards Mental Illness

Abstract

Objectives: Dental illness and psychiatric illness are among the most prevalent health problems all over the world. Evidence suggests that people with mental illness are more vulnerable to dental neglect and poor oral health. Health care professions including dentists are not immune to social prejudices and share the general public's attitude attributed to people with mental illness, affecting quality of care. The aim of the study was to determine the extent to which dental interns are formally prepared to care for patients with mental illness, by assessing their attitudes towards people with mental illness. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive design was adopted for the present study. A total of 36 dental interns were purposively selected to complete self-reported questionnaires, which consist of four items to seek the background of the participants in the study, which include "age, gender, residence and contact with persons with mental illness" and, 34 item Opinion about mental illness for Chinese community (OMICC) scale. which is a valid and reliable, self-report measure of attitudes. Results: Dental interns have significant positive attitudes towards mental illness in two of the six attitude factors: Benevolence (30.58±3.14) and stereotyping (5.61±1.02). However, they have negative attitudes in stigmatization (10.08±3.02), separa-tism (26.33±4.83), restrictiveness (10.08±2.96) and pessimistic prediction (13.47±3.61) domains as they rated high. Conclusion: The findings of the present study have important implications for care of person with mental illness by dental interns and thereby on dental training. Thus, academic education from courses in this area must be planned so as to favour the change in the attitudes and promote a commitment to provide holistic care to people with mental illness.