A Descriptive Study to Assess Community Knowledge and Attitude towards Mental Health in Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background ;mental disorders include Anxiety, Depression and Somatoform disorders and they are characterized by symptoms such as insomnia, fatigue, irritability, forgetfulness, difficulty in concentrating and somatic complaints. Common mental disorders are the most prevalent mental disorders in the world. Although they are not as severe as psychotic disorders, they can pose a significant public health problem because of their high prevalence and serious effects on personal wellbeing, family, work and use of health services. In Ethiopia where mortality is still mostly the result of infectious diseases and malnutrition, the morbidity and disablement due to mental illness receive very little attention from the government. This study will assess and reverberate the mental health knowledge and attitude on general population. Objective ;1) Assess the knowledge regarding mental health in general population 2) Assess the attitude towards the mental health Materials and Methods ;Descriptive design was adopted and simple random sampling techniques were used and about 330 samples were included. Three sets of self-structured questionnaires are used to assess demographic variables , knowledge and attitude. Data analysis used in the study were descriptive statistics like mean, median , mode ,standard deviation, variance , range, frequency and percentage are used . Results ; The study shows that , in 330 samples 161(48.8%) persons had poor knowledge regarding mental health and 169 (51.2%) persons had good knowledge regarding mental health. Whereas on assessing attitude 256 (77.6%) persons had poor attitude towards mental health and 74 (22.4%) had good attitude towards mental health . Conclusion ;The study findings suggest that half of the sample population had a good knowledge towards mental health and mental distress. But when comes to attitude not nearly quarter sample population had good attitude towards the mental health. In spite of good knowledge there as been poor attitude towards the mental health.