Attitudes of General Hospital Staff towards Persons with Mental Illness: Associations between Place of Training, Ethnicity, and Type of Profession

摘要

Objective: Persons with mental illnesses (PMI) commonly report encountering discriminatory attitudes and behaviours by Health Care Professionals (HCPs) involved in their care. Such stigmatising attitudes and behaviours may affect recovery rates and erode quality of care provided by these HCPs. We assess attitudes of HCPs towards PMI in a tertiary general hospital in Singapore. Methods: An anonymised online questionnaire was sent to HCPs working in the hospital. Attitudes were assessed using the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Healthcare Professionals (OMS-HC), with responses rated on a 3-point Likert scale. Results: Doctors and Chinese staff trained locally were significantly more likely to feel more comfortable treating persons with physical than psychiatric problems, whereas Indian staff were less likely to express such reservations. HCPs generally accepted physical complaints at face value, while nurses tended to adopt critical attitudes toward patients and negatively perceived the utility of psychiatric treatment. For instance, nurses were more likely to judge persons with mental illness as not trying hard enough to get better, while admitting to having difficulty feeling compassion for those with psychiatric problems. Staff who received undergraduate and postgraduate training overseas were more likely to develop favourable attitudes toward PMI. Conclusions: The study has uncovered gaps in the understanding of mental disorders and their treatment. These knowledge deficits should be rectified so as to reduce negative attitudes toward PMI.