Exploration of mental health awareness and stigma associated with mental illness among college students
Keywords:
mental health awareness, stigma, mental illness, good health, well-beingAbstract
The study was conducted to explore the extent of mental health awareness and stigma associated with it. For this purpose, a sample of 200 college students in the age range from 19-23 years was taken. The sample was further divided on the basis of area differences viz. rural and urban. Data was collected using mental health literacy scale (O’Connor& Casey, 2015)and attitude scale for mental illness scale (Ng & Chan, 2002). Results revealed that there is a negative correlation between mental health awareness and stigma associated with mental illness. It was also revealed that there exist significant area differences in this regard. Urban population scored higher on mental health literacy and lower on stigma associated with mental illness as compared to their rural counterparts. Additionally, it was also found that significant gender differences exist on both of these variables. Girls scoring higher on mental health awareness while boys scoring higher on stigma related to mental health.
Downloads
References
Brekke, J. S., Fulginiti, A., Pahwa, R. & Rice, E. (2017). Mental illness disclosuredecision making. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 87(5). 575–584. DOI:10.1037/ort0000250
Chandra, A., &Minkovitz, C. S. (2006). Stigma starts early: Gender differences in teen willingness to use mental health services. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38 (6).
Chaplin, T. M. (2015, January). Gender and emotion expression: A developmental contextual perspective. Emotion Review, 7 (1), 14-21.
Cheesmond, N. E., Davies, K., &Inder, K. J. (2019).Exploring the role of rurality and rural identity in mental health help-seeking behavior: A systematic qualitative review.Journal of Rural Mental Health, 43(1), 45–59.
Codjoe, L., Barber, S., Ahuja, S., Thornicroft, G., Henderson, C., Lempp, H., & N’Danga-Koroma, J. (2021). Evidence for interventions to promote mental health and reduce stigma in Black Faith Communities: Systematic Review. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 56 (6), 895-911
Cook, T.M. &Wang, J. (2010).Descriptive epidemiology of stigma against depression in a general population sample in Alberta.BMC Psychiatry, 10 (29).
Corrigan PW (2005) On the Stigma of Mental Illness: Practical Strategies for Research and Social Change. Washington (DC): American Psychological Association.
Corrigan, P.W., Druss, B.G. &Perlick, D.A. (2014). The Impact of Mental Illness Stigma on Seeking and Participating in Mental Health Care. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 15 (2), 37-70. doi: 10.1177/1529100614531398.
Cotton, S.M., Wright, A., Harris, M.G., Jorm, A.F., McGory, P.D. (2006). Influence of gender on mental health literacy in young Australians. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40 (9).
Ecker, K. (2019, May 5). Rural students experience rocky adjustments from hometown mental health stigma. Retrieved from http://accessubeyondcities.sjmc.umn.edu/2019/05/05/rural-students-experience-rocky-adjustments-from-hometown-mental-health-stigma/index.html
Goplakrishan, N. (2018). Cultural diversity and mental health: considerations for policy and practice. Frontiers in Public Health, 6:179.
Hernández-Torrano, D., Ibrayeva, L., Sparks, J., Lim, N., Clementi, A., Almukhambetova, A., Nurtayev, Y., &Muratkyzy, A. (2020). Mental health and well-being of university students: A Bibliometric mapping of the literature. Frontiers in Psychology. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01226
Holman, D. (2015). Exploring the relationship between social class, mental illness stigma and mental health literacy using British national survey data.Health, 19(4), 413–429.
Javed, A., Lee, C., Zakaria, H., Buenaventura, R. D., Cetkovich-Bakmas, M., Duailibi, K., Ng, B., Ramy, H., Saha, G., Arifeen, S., Elorza, P. M., Ratnasingham, P., &Azeem, M. W. (2021).Reducing the stigma of mental health disorders with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 58:102601. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102601.
Jorm, A.F., Korten, A.E., Jacomb, P.A., Christensen, H., Rodgers B., & Pollitt, P. (1997). Mental health literacy: a survey of the public's ability to recognise mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment. Medical Journal of Ausralia, 166(4):182-186. doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1997.tb140071.x. PMID: 9066546
Kakuma, R., Kleintjes, S., Lund, C., Drew, N., Green, A., &Flisher, A.J. (2010). Mental health stigma: what is being done to raise awareness and reduce stigma in South Africa? African Journal of Psychiatry, 13 (2), 116-124.
Momi, N. &Saikia, K. (2016). Knowledge and attitude towards mental illness- A comparative study among rural and urban college students. An International Journal of Health Research, 3 (1).
Mutiso, V.N., Musyimi, C.W., Tomita, A., Loeffen, L., Burns, J.K. &Ndetei, D.M. (2018).Epidemiological patterns of mental disorders and stigma in a community household survey in urban slum and rural settings in Kenya. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 64 (2), 12-129.
Ng P. & Chan, K. (2002). Attitudes towards people with mental illness: effects of a training program for secondary school students. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 14 (3), 215-224.
O'Connor, M., & Casey, L. (2015). The Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS): A new scale-based measure of mental health literacy. Psychiatry research, 229 (1-2), 511–516.
Pattyn, E., Verhaeghe, M., Sercu, C., &Bracke, P. (2014). Public stigma and self-stigma: differential association with attitudes toward formal and informal help seeking. Psychiatric Services, 1:65 (2), 232-238. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201200561
Pompeo-Fargnoli, A. (2020). Mental health stigma among college students: Misperceptions of perceived and personal stigmas.Journal of American College Health, 23 (1-10). doi: 10.1080/07448481.2020.1784904
Rost, K., Smith, G.R. & Taylor, J.L. (1993). Rural-urban differences in stigma and the use of care for depressive disorders. The Journal of Rural Health, 9 (1), 57-62.
Sagar-Ouriaghli.I., Brown, J. S. L., Tailor, V., & Godfrey, E. (2020). Engaging male students with mental health support: A qualitative focus group study. BMC Public Health, 20 (1159).
Schroeder,S., Ming-Tan, C., Urlacher, B. &Heitkamp, T.(2021). The Role of rural and urban geography and gender in community stigma around mental illness.Health, Education & Behavior, 48 (1).
Slade M. (2010). Mental illness and well-being: the central importance of positive psychology and recovery approaches. BMC Health Services Research, 10 (26).
Spittel, S., Maier, A., & Kraus, E. (2019). Awareness challenges of mental health disorder and dementia facing stigmatisation and discrimination: A systematic literature review from Sub-Sahara Africa. Journal of Global Health, 9 (2).doi: 10.7189/jogh.09.020419
Srivastava, K., Chatterjee, K. &Bhat, P.S. (2016). Mental health awareness: The Indian scenario. Indian Psychiatry Journal, 25 (2), 131-134
Stewart, H., Jameson, J. P., & Curtin, L. (2015). The relationship between stigma and self-reported willingness to use mental health services among rural and urban older adults. Psychological services, 12(2), 141–148. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038651
Tam Ta, T.M., Zieger, A., Schomerus, G. & Cao, D.T., (2016).Influence of urbanity on perception of mental illness stigma: A population based study in urban and rural Hanoi, Vietnam. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 62 (8), DOI: 10.1177/0020764016670430.
Vinayak, S. & Judge, J. (2018). Impact of altruism and forgiveness on empathy among female police personnel. IMPACT: International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature, 6 (2), 167-176.
Wong, K. (2016). Gender differences in mental health literacy of university students.Western Undergraduate Psychology Journal, (4).
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2022 International journal of health sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the International Journal of Health Sciences (IJHS) are available under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Authors retain copyright in their work and grant IJHS right of first publication under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles in this journal, and to use them for any other lawful purpose.
Articles published in IJHS can be copied, communicated and shared in their published form for non-commercial purposes provided full attribution is given to the author and the journal. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
This copyright notice applies to articles published in IJHS volumes 4 onwards. Please read about the copyright notices for previous volumes under Journal History.
