Investigation of beliefs and attitudes of emergency service staff towards mental illnesses

• Main Authors: Serap Yildirim, Funda Ersoysal, Cansu Guler
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ANP Publishing 2018-12-01
• Series: Klinik Psikiyatri Dergisi
• Subjects: Emergency departments; mental illness; belief; attitude
• Online Access: https://www.journalagent.com/kpd/pdfs/KPD_21_4_380_388.pdf

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to investigate the beliefs and attitudes of emergency service staff towards mental illnesses. METHODS: The descriptive study was conducted between March and June 2017 with 57 volunteer health staff working in the emergency room of a university hospital. The data were collected through the Introductory Information Form and the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness Scale (BMI). In the analysis of the data, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test were used. RESULTS: The mean scores of BMI subscale scores of emergency workers were 22.54±5.58 for “Dangerousness”, 27.81±7.65 for “Poor social and interpersonal skills and incurability”, 2.07±2.08 for “Shame”, and 52.42±11.74 for total scale score. It is found that emergency service staff’ distribution of “Shame” subscale score was statistically significant only gender variable (U: 267.0, p<0.05). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It was conclusion that emergency service staff participating in the study had moderate positive attitudes toward mental illnesses, whereas variables other than education status did not affect these attitudes. It is recommended to conduct a study with a larger sample group of emergency staff.