The effects of nursing students’ beliefs towards mental illnesses on their stigmatisation tendencies
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Abstract
Negative attitudes towards mental illnesses may have a negative effect on patients’ coping with the disease effectively, managing care and their quality of life. This study was planned to find out the effects of nursing students’ beliefs towards mental illnesses on their stigmatisation tendencies. This descriptive and correlational study was conducted between 05.06.2021 and 20.06.2021 with the participation of 235 students who were studying at Ondokuz Mayis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing and who were willing to participate in the study. The data in the study were collected by using a survey form consisting of 25 questions to find out the sociodemographic characteristics of the students and their attitudes towards mental illnesses and Beliefs towards Mental Illness Scale and Stigma Scale. The normality distribution of the data was examined with Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, while analysis of variance test and t-test were used in the evaluation of data which were normally distributed, Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U test were used in the comparison of data which were not normally distributed. The correlation between the scales and sub-dimensions was examined with Spearman’s correlation analysis. It was found that 72.3% of the participants were female and 27.7% were male, 74.9% had grown up in a nuclear family, 37.4% had a democratic family structure, 77.9% chose the profession of nursing willingly, 57.4% had received information about mental illnesses, 62.1% did not have any relatives with mental illness, 31.6% described the main reason of mental illnesses as conflicts in the family, 63.8% stated that they wanted to provide care to individuals with mental illness and the mean age of the participants was found as 20.71 ± 1.91. The mean Beliefs towards Mental Illness Scale score was found as 46.60 ± 18.37, while the mean Stigma Scale score was found as 44.30 ± 12.88. Beliefs towards Mental Illness Scale and Stigma Scale total scores were found to differ in terms of some sociodemographic characteristics of the students (p < 0.05). A positive moderate correlation was found between students’ Beliefs towards Mental Illness Scale scores and Stigma Scale scores. It was found that nursing students who participated in the study had negative beliefs towards mental illness, they had low stigmatisation tendencies and their stigmatisation tendency decreased as their negative beliefs towards mental illnesses decreased. In line with the results obtained, it is recommended to find out nursing students’ beliefs towards mental illnesses and their stigmatisation tendencies and to include these subjects in the nursing education curriculum.
Keywords: Belief, mental illness, nursing, nursing student, stigmatisation
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