J Nurs Acad Soc.  1973 May;3(2):31-44.

A Study of the Attitudes of Nonpsychiatric Registered Nurses towards Mental Illness and Mental Patients

• Park YS

Abstract

The trend in modern nursing is toward the performance of comprehensive nursing care. Psychiatric nursing emphasizes education which enables the nurse to understand the underlying difficulties being expressed through a wide range of emotions and through practice to be more adept in her selection of a manner of approach which best meets the needs of a given situation. Presently, in Korea, there is nothing in the literature regarding evaluation of the effect of psychiatric nursing education on the attitudes of nurses towards mental illness and mentally ill patients. This study was attempted in order to understand 1) some of the problems in psychi- atric nursing education and 2) some of the factors which affect the attitudes of nurses towards mental illness and mental patients. A questionnaire, a Korean translation of the "Opinions about Mental Illness Scale" by Cohen and Struening, 1962, was administered to 188 nonpsychiatric registered nurses employed in Yonsei University Hospital (Y. Hospital) and Seoul National University Hospital (S. Hospital) located in the city of Seoul. All of the nurses were directly inv- olved with adult patient care. They graduated from various nursing schools. The data was collected during the period of October 2 to October 16,1972. The age, educational background, marital status, type of previous psychiatric experience. experience as a graduate nurse and close personal relationship with someone who was a psychiatric patient were compared with the O.M.I. scores. The mean and standard errors for each of the comparison groups were computed and the relationships calculated by a t-test. The results of the study are summarized as follow: 1. There is no significant difference between the age of the nurses and their attitudes toward mental illness and mental patients. 2. There is no significant difference between the educational backgrounds of the nurses and their attitudes toward mental illness and mental patients. 3. There is a significant difference in the nurses' student psychiatric nursing experie- nce and their attitudes towards mental illness and mental patients for the nurses in S. Hospital only. The nurses who had 3-4 weeks of student psychiatric nursing experience had a signi- ficantly higher mean score for Benevolence (factor B) than nurses whose student psychi- atric experience had been less than 1 week (p<0. 05). The nurses who had 1-2 weeks, 3-4 weeks, and more than 4 weeks of student psych- iatric nursing experience had significantly higher mean scores for Interpersonal Etiology (factor E) than nurses whose student psychiatric had been less than 1 week (p<0. 05). 4. There is a significant difference in the nurses' student psychiatric nursing experience by types of institution and their attitudes towards mental illness and mental patients for S. Hospital nurses only. The nurses who had their student psychiatric nursing experience in the government psychiatric hospitals recorded significantly higher mean score for Authoritorianism(factor A) than nurses who had their experience in private psychiatric hospitals (p<0. 05). 5. There is no significant difference in the nurses' psychiatric nursing experience as a graduate nurse and their attitudes toward mental illness and mental patients. 6. There is no significant difference in the nature snd variety of the nurses' experie- nce as a graduate nurse and their attitude toward mental illness and mental patients. 7. There is no significant difference in the presence or absence of a close personal relationship with a mentally ill person and the nurses' attitude toward mental illness and mental patients. 8. There is no significant difference in the nurses' marital status and their attitude toward mental illness and mental patients. 9. There is no significant difference between the nurses who were employed in S. and Y. hospitals and their attitudes towards mental illness, and mental patients. Major suggestion for further study was to have more larger and wider scale research for establishing of the reliability and validity of the Korean translation of the O.M.I. Scale.

MeSH Terms

Adult
Beneficence
Education
Education, Nursing
Hospitals, Psychiatric
Humans
Korea
Marital Status
Mentally Ill Persons*
Nursing
Nursing Care
Patient Care
Psychiatric Nursing
Surveys and Questionnaires
Reproducibility of Results
Schools, Nursing
Seoul