An Experimental Study to Assess Effectiveness of Anti-Stigma Sensitization Programme on Attitude and Perception towards Mental Health and Mental Illness among College Students in Selected Institutions of the City

An experimental study conducted to assess effectiveness of anti-stigma sensitization programme on attitude and perception towards mental health and mental illness among college students in selected institutions of the city. A pretest-post-test control group design was used. The samples were selected through simple random sampling method. After pretesting the sessions along with activity was taken on mental health, mental illness, misconceptions about mental illness and prevention of stigma for the experimental group. For the control group, standard instructions as per institution policy were administered. A post-test was conducted for both the control and experimental group. The data of the present study was collected by a self-structured questionnaire. Based on the findings it was verified that the program promoted a significant improvement in the attitude and perception levels towards mental health and mental illness in college students with a p-value of 0.000 < 0.05 which was highly significant.