Student Nurses` Attitudes and Perceptions Towards People with Mental Illnesses

Abstract

Mental illnesses can be defined as, health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotion, behavior or a combination of these. Nurses play a key role in caring for the mentally ill and in rehabilitating them after an episode of illness. The aim of this study was to determine student nurses’ attitudes and perceptions towards people with mental illnesses. A quantitative descriptive study was conducted with a purposive sample of 150 third year nursing students who have completed their five weeks psychiatric training programme at School of Nursing, Mulleriyawa, Sri Lanka. Data were collected by utilizing a self-administered questionnaire, consisting of three sections, Section A: Socio-demographic information, Section B: Mental Health Problems perceptions Questionnaire (MHPPQ) and Section C: Attitudes scale for Mental Illness (ASMI). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Majority of participants, 84.66% had negative attitude of restrictiveness and 83.33% had positive attitude of benevolence. Overall, 74.66%, 68%and 63.33% of participants had perceptions of therapeutic commitment, role support and role commitment respectively. Study concluded that the nursing students had positive attitudes toward mental illnesses in the sub scale of benevolence and separatism and negative attitudes for other four sub scales of ASMI. These students also had positive perceptions towards mentally ill. These findings direct future researches of the influence of psychiatric training on attitudes and perceptions of student nurses in Sri Lanka.