Effect of an educational program on nurses’ perception and attitudes toward mental illness

Background: Although recent advances in psychiatry have increased our understanding of psychiatric disorders, many people may be unaware about mental illness and its treatment. Several studies reveal poor knowledge about mental illness in nurses and stigmatizing attitudes toward people with mental illness which is known hindrance to provide quality service to mental ill people. Mental health problems are of serious concern across the world. Objective: The aim of the study was to measure the effectiveness of an educational program on the psychiatric nurses' perception and attitudes toward mental illness. The study followed a quasi experimental study design. Subjects and Methods: The study was carried out at Tanta Mental Health Hospital. The study Subjects included all nurses working in Tanta Mental Health Hospital (71 nurses). Two tools were used to collect the study data. Tool I: A structured interview questionnaire sheet that assesses nurses' perception toward mental illness. Tool II: the Opinion about Mental Illness in the Chinese Community (OMICC) scale by (Ng and Chan, 2000). It measures the general attitude to mental illness. This scale has six domains: benevolence, separatism, stereotyping, restrictiveness, pessimistic prediction, and stigmatization. Each nurse was interviewed individually by using Tool (1) and (2) (pre-test) to assess the nurses' perception and attitudes toward mental illness, the program was developed in order to provide the nurses with knowledge to enhance their perception and attitude toward mental illness. At the end of the program implementation, the nurses' perception questionnaire sheet, (tool I) and Opinions about Mental Illness in the Chinese Community (OMICC) (Ng and Chan, 2000) scale, (tool II) were re-applied on all the study subjects (post- test 1) and after three months (post- test 2), to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The overall data collection took about one year. Results: The study revealed that the majority of the studied nurses had poor perception about mental illness in pre intervention assessment which significantly improved after intervention which indicates the effectiveness of educational program on perception change of the nurses. Regarding attitude about mental illness of the studied nurses, it was found that nurses had moderately good score of attitude in pre intervention assessment which increased slightly immediately post intervention, but significantly increased in three months post intervention. As a whole, the total mean scores of attitude significantly improved in three months post intervention. In conclusion, the educational program was more effective on perception and attitude change of the nurses. Recommendations: Knowing the attitudes of this fundamental group of mental health professionals has implications for the educational preparation and organized educational programs of all nurses, to ensure that patients are treated with dignity and respect in a therapeutically effective and ethically sound environment. Nurses' training that includes greater use of teaching strategies that challenge beliefs and assumptions and promote a commitment to positive attitude and effective mental health practice.