A Corelational Descriptive Study to Assess the Knowledge and Attitude of School Student towards Mental Illness of Selected School of Amritsar, Punjab

Stigma is common toward persons with mental health problems and can be defined as a label that sets a person apart from others, links her or him with undesirable characteristics and leads to avoidance by others in society. To aid in the planning of effective and well-targeted initiatives to reduce stigma we examined in my dissertation the prevalence of stigmatizing attitudes and the factors associated with stigmatizing of school going students with mental disorders.

Statement of the problem: A Correlational Descriptive Study to assess the knowledge and attitude of school student towards mental illness of selected school of Amritsar Punjab.

Objectives of the study: The objectives are to:

1. To assess the knowledge regarding the mental illness of school student.

2. To assess the attitude towards mental illness of school student.

3. To find the correlation between knowledge score and attitude score of school student regarding the mental illness.

4. To determine the association between knowledge and attitude scores of school student regarding the mental illness with selected socio- demographic variables.

Method: A non-experimental research approach along with co-relational descriptive research design was used. Research study was conducted in selected school of Amritsar, Punjab. Probability sampling technique purposive sampling technique was used for data collection. Socio-demographic profile and Self structured Likert scale for knowledge and attitude towards mental illnesses among students of selected school of Amritsar, Punjab. The tool was administered to 100 students. The permission for study was taken from the principal of the school. After taking the permission medical and non-medical students were chosen for the study by stratified random sampling technique. All the students were given explanation about the study and the tools and tools were distributed to fill. Health education was conducted by chart display on mental health in school auditorium.

Results : It shows that majority (37%) of students have average knowledge followed by 35 % who were having poor knowledge, 28% were having good knowledge and majority (56%) of students have negative attitude towards mental illnesses followed by 44 % who were having positive attitude. Coefficient of correlation was 0.52 concluded that knowledge and attitude towards mental illnesses among school students have positive correlation. It was concluded that there was no significant association between gender whereas stream of education and area of residence is associated with knowledge and attitude towards mental illnesses of school students.

Conclusion: It was concluded that there was no significant association between gender where as stream of education and area of residence is associated with knowledge and attitude towards mental illnesses of school students.