A Study To Assess The Knowledge And Attitude Regarding Human Rights Of Mentally Ill Among The Staff Nurses Working In Selected Hospital For Mental Health Of Gujarat State With A View To Develop An Information Booklet

Abstract

The study was aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding Human Rights of Mentally ill among the Staff Nurses working in selected hospital for mental health of Gujarat state. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was implied in the study. Convenient sampling method was used to select 100 samples. A 40 question Structured Knowledge Questionnaire was used to assess knowledge and 20 question Likert Attitude Scale was used to assess attitude of Staff Nurses regarding Human Rights of Mentally ill. The reliability of the knowledge questionnaire was computed by Split-half method (0.847) and attitude scale by Cronbach’s alpha method (0.812). Data was collected from two main Hospital for Mental Health of Gujarat State. Time schedule for the data collection were the working hours during all the shifts of the duty. Data was gathered and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. The major findings of the study were that 52% respondents had good knowledge, 40 % respondents had average knowledge and 8 % respondents had poor knowledge regarding Human rights of Mentally ill. In terms of attitude 57% respondents had positive attitude, 43 % respondents had negative attitude regarding Human Rights of Mentally Ill. There was significant positive correlation between knowledge and attitude regarding Human Rights of Mentally ill, found by Karl Pearson formula. Association was found out between the demographic variables and knowledge as well as attitude and the findings relieved that there was association between Age, Marital Status, Type of Family, Monthly Income, Education, Experience in Psychiatric Setup, Training/ Workshop/ Conference and Knowledge and association between Age, Marital Status, Education, Training/ Workshop/ Conference and Attitude regarding Human Rights of Mentally ill. The knowledge though being good and average shows a lacuna in the attitude as 42% of the population has negative attitude. Human rights of mentally ill being a legal and ethical aspect of the nursing care it is essential for the nurses to have widespread and comprehensive knowledge and favorable attitude towards Human Rights of mentally ill so the investigator has developed an information booklet for the same.