A Survey of the Attitudes of Nurses towards Caring for the Mentally Ill at a Rural General Hospital

Background: Mental illness is a global problem affecting millions of people. There has been an increase in the number of mentally ill persons who are treated in the general hospital setting due to decentralization of mental health services. Objectives: The purpose of the study is to explore the attitudes of nurses at a rural general hospital, with an aim to improve services offered to persons with mental illness. Methods: A descriptive study survey was carried out among nurses in a general hospital. The data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire which was taken from a previous study. Data was analyzed using SPSS® version 20. Results: A total of 84 questionnaires were administered with a response rate of 92.8%. All respondents were females with an average age of 35.7±8.3 years. Most of the nurses (42%) had 11-41 years of work experience. Most of the nurses (70.5%) had a negative attitude towards caring for the mentally ill. All nurses had psychiatric nursing in their basic training but only 98.7% had no additional training and 88% had no continuing education in psychiatric nursing. The majority (88%) of the nurses had a positive attitude towards the environment in which care is offered to the mentally ill. Conclusion: Most of the nurses surveyed had a negative attitude towards mental illness. There needs to be more trained psychiatric nurses in the hospital and continuing education sessions/workshops to reduce the negative attitudes of these nurses. More research is needed to have an in-depth understanding of the issues.