Attitude of Kerman medical sciences students on mental diseases

Introduction: Nowadays، in spite of the scientific advances in diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases، provision of psychological and psychiatric services to public often are encountering to some difficulties because negative and stereotypic approaches. Hence، determination of attitude on mental disorders is very important and modifying the attitudes is one of the main aims in this domain. Objective: This study was performed to determination of the attitude of Kerman medical sciences students about mental diseases in 2009. Method: In this cross–sectional descriptive study، 3400 students in Kerman university of medical sciences were participated through census route. For data collecting، questionnaire of evaluating the attitude toward mental diseases was used. This questionnaire consists of two parts: demographic variables and questions about attitude on mental diseases. For evaluating the reliability of questions، alpha -Chronbach was calculated and high coefficient was obtained (0/691). Data analysis was done by using the factor analysis method of questions in which all questions in one factor (by considering the indexes of kmo. bartlett) were added. The Data were analyzed by ANOVA and T-tests. Results: The results showed that most students had a positive and realistic attitude toward the mental patients. there was a significant difference between the attitude with the demographic variables such as age، sex، marital status and academic discipline. On the other hand، medicine and nursing groups had the more positive attitude other than majors (p<0/001). Also، there was negative relationship between age and attitude (p