Training Primary Care Health Workers in Mental Health Evaluation of Attitudes towards Mental Illness before and after Training

Abstract

One hundred and fifty primary care paramedical health workers who underwent a short term training in mental health care were evaluated to understand their attitudes towards mental health before, and immediately after, the training course. The trainees showed a significant change in attitudes in the desirable direction towards different mental health problems. Baseline attitude of health workers was not related to age, sex, level of education or duration of their professional service. However, health workers with low baseline attitude scores registered a significantly higher gain. Item analysis revealed that 10 of the 35 items of the attitude questionnaire failed to reveal significant post training changes.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Cohen, J. & Struening, E.L. (1962) Opinions about mental illness in the personnel of two large mental hospitals. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 64, 349-360.

Conover, W.J. (1980) Practical Nonparametric Statistics. 2nd Edition. New York: John Wiley.

Hicks, J.M. & Spaner, F.E. (1982) Attitude change and mental hospital experience . Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 65, 112-120.

Kapur, M. , Kshama, R. & Kapur, R.L. (1980) A brief orientation course for basic health workers on psychiatric problems in rural India. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 69-73.

Malla, A. & Shaw, T. (1987) Attitudes towards mental illness: The influence of education and experience. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 33, 33-41.

NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMME FOR INDIA (1982) Directorate General of Health Services, New Delhi.

Nunnally, C. (1961) Popular conceptions of mental health: Their development and change. New York: Holt, Rinchart & Winston.

Olade. R.A. (1983) Attitudes towards mental illness: effect of integration of mental health concepts into a post basic nursing degree programme. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 8, 93-97.

Prabhu, G.G. , Raghuram, A. , Verma, N. & Maridass, A.C. (1984) Public attitudes towards mental illness. a review. NIMHANS Journal, 2, 1-14.

10.

Rabkin, J. (1972) Opinions about mental illness: a review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 77, 153-171.

11.

Rabkin, J.G. (1974) Public attitudes towards mental illness: a review of the literature. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 10, 9-33.

12.

Segal, S.P. (1978) Attitude toward the mentally ill: a review. Social Work, 23, 211-217.

13.

Singh, G. (1985) Dhat Syndrome revisited. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 27, 119-122.

14.

Srinivasa Murthy, R. , Chandrashekar, C.R. , Nagarajaiah , Isaac, M.K. , Parthasarathy. R. & Raghuram, A. (1988). Manual of Mental Health Care for multipurpose workers. Bangalore. ICMR Advanced Centre for Research on Community Mental Health, NIMHANS.