A comparative study of the attitudes of clinical psychiatric nurses and nursing students towards mental disorders

Objective To investigate the attitudes of nurses and nursing students to mental illness, and to compare the status quo. Methods A mental illness attitude questionnaire survey was conducted among 100 nurses who worked in a psychiatric hospital and 100 nursing students with technical secondary school education who studied course related Psychiatry in one health school. Results The attitudes presented that each sub-scale and nursing students mean score were beyond 51 compared between nurses of Department of Psychiatry and nursing students in health school; for the psychiatric disease being hard to cure and treat well, patients with no social value, avoiding, the differences of scores between nurses of Department of Psychiatry and nursing students had statistical significance (P<0.01). Conclusions Nurses and nursing students have a negative attitude towards mental illness, and the nurses are more negative than nursing students; they are more accepted the discrimination for the patients and their families which causes impacts. Key words: Department of Psychiatry; Clinical nurse; Mental illness; Attitude; Health school; Nursing students