Table 3 Attitudes towards mental illness and the field of mental health (n = 112)
MICA-4 items | Favorable answers n (%) |
|---|---|
13. If a person with a mental illness complained of physical symptoms (such as chest pain), I would attribute it to their mental illness (R) | 108 (96.4) |
15. I would use the terms “crazy,” “nutter,” “mad,” etc. to describe to colleagues people with a mental illness who I have seen in my work | 101 (90.2) |
16. If a colleague told me they had a mental illness, I would still want to work with them | 95 (85.6) |
1. I just learn about mental health when I have to, and I would not bother reading additional material on it (R) | 95 (85.6) |
2. People with severe mental illness can never recover enough to have a good quality of life (R) | 67 (59.8) |
4. If I had a mental illness, I would never admit this to any of my friends because I would fear being treated differently (R) | 58 (51.8) |
14. General practitioners should not be expected to complete a thorough assessment for people with psychiatric symptoms because they can be referred to a psychiatrist (R) | 57 (50.9) |
10. I feel comfortable talking to a person with mental illness as I do talking to a person with physical illness | 47 (42.0) |
7. If I had a mental illness, I would never admit this to my colleagues for fear of being treated differently (R) | 46 (41.8) |
5. People with mental illness are dangerous more often than not (R) | 31 (27.7) |
12. The public does not need to be protected from people with mental illness | 22 (20.0) |