فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Background: The beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of the society toward mentally ill patientsmayprevent these people from seekinghelp and accessing a successful treatment.Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate mental illness among Turkish females residing in rural areas and their attitudestoward mental illness.PatientsandMethods: The current studywasinferential cross-sectional. The population of this study consisted of 1000householdsregistered at the primary healthcare centre inAdemyavuz areawhometthe study inclusion criteria. The sample sizewas387 females.Using the simple random sample selection method, certain females living in these households were included in the study. Thesocioeconomic status of the population in this region is low and middle-class. The adult population of the region is 10,960. Femalescomprise 39.8% of Ademyavuz population. The prevalence of mental illness in the district is unknown. Data were collected by faceto-face interviews using a researcher made questionnaire and the opinions about mental illness scale (OMI) in autumn 2008. Theinterviews were conducted at the participants’ houses and lasted for 20 - 30 minutes. The females gave their informed consent andwere assured that their information would be treated as strictly confidential.Results: The females in the rural research area had negative attitudes and stigmas about mental illness. The subject of the currentstudy exhibited a total mean score of 155.624.5 in terms of their attitudes toward mental illness. Mean scores in the unsophisticatedbenevolence sub-scale were 42.5  8.2, 34.2  7.9 in the authoritarianism sub-scale, 25.5  6.3 in the mental illness ideologysub-scale, 34.07.4 in the social restrictiveness sub-scale, and 20.06.0 for the interpersonal etiology sub-scale. The current studyfound that individuals exhibited more positive attitudes towards mental illnesses as they got older (Kvx2 = 19.42; P < 0.0001), marriedpeople exhibited a more positive attitude towards mental illnesses than singles did (Kvx2 = 19.42; P < 0.0001), those who consideredthemselves to have a good economic status exhibited a more negative attitude towards mental illnesses compared to the ones whothought their economic status as poor or average (Kvx2 = 5.11; P = 0.024).Conclusions: Nurses have an important role in creating and maintaining a mentally healthy society. It is advisable to provide thepublic with training and consultancy services within the context of primary healthcare services, especially during home visits tochange the negative attitudes of individuals against the mentally ill and prevent approaches that promote social isolation and denouncement.