Attitudes of psychiatric hospital personnel toward people with mental illness

Background: Attitudes toward people with mental illness of psychiatric hospital personnel are critical for mental health care, but there is a lack of information about this issue in Taiwan.

Aim: To explore attitudes among psychiatric hospital personnel towards people with mental illness and to examine the factors that influence those attitudes.

Method: The study used a self-report questionnaire to collect data from personnel of one psychiatric hospital in Taiwan (n=290). All questions were rated on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The content of the attitude questionnaire included four dimensions: Social Distance, Acceptance, Rehabilitation & Prognosis, and Intervention.

Result: Attitudes of psychiatric hospital personnel towards people with mental illness tended to be positive. Among the four dimensions, Rehabilitation & Prognosis had the highest average scores (4.03) and Social Distance had the lowest average scores (3.22). Moreover, education, job position, multiple types of contacted clients, training, the primary reason for working in a psychiatric hospital, and self-stigmatization were all related to attitudes of the personnel.

Conclusion: To improve the personnel's attitudes towards people with mental illness, mental health training is an effective intervention. In addition, psychiatric hospitals should provide for personnel opportunities of job rotations and consultation related to mental illness. Further research is necessary to explore the influence of self-stigmatization, and to develop a complete attitude questionnaire suitable for Taiwanese culture.