<Originals> Changes in Attitudes toward Mental Disorders of Nursing Students in a Follow-up Study for One Year

The attitudes toward mental disorders were studied in nursing students in three occasions, i.e. before and after psychiatric clinical practice and before graduation. The subjects were 79 nursing students in our college. Before and after psychiatric clinical practice and before graduation, their attitudes were assessed by a survey test of general attitude toward mental disorders, developed by Okagami et al. The items such as "Mental disorder is a type of disease", "Mentally disabled people are terrible since they may do anything" and "It is a shame if I have a family member with mental disorder and it is known by people" that changed toward tolerance after psychiatric clinical practice were found maintained at the time of graduation. The items such as "Mentally disabled people behave abnormally only at specific periods of time" and "Behavior of mentally disabled people is completely beyond understanding" that changed toward tolerance after psychiatric clinical practice tended to return back to levels before psychiatric clinical practice. The items that "Psychiatric hospitals are institutions that treat disease of the patients rather than isolate them" and "Psychiatric hospitals should train the patients so that they learn the social skills" were found changed in more negative directions at the time of graduation than before psychiatric clinical practice. The study revealed that some of attitudes of nursing students toward mental disorders that changed toward tolerance through the psychiatric clinical practice were maintained at the time of graduation