Attitude and help-seeking behavior of the community towards mental health problems

Yonas Tesfaye; Liyew Agenagnew; Gudina Terefe Tucho; Susan Anand; Zewdie Birhanu; Gutema Ahmed; Masrie Getenet; Kiddus Yitbarek

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0242160

Attitude and help-seeking behavior of the community towards mental health problems

PLoS One. 2020 Nov 12;15(11):e0242160. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242160. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yonas Tesfaye¹, Liyew Agenagnew¹, Gudina Terefe Tucho², Susan Anand³, Zewdie Birhanu⁴, Gutema Ahmed¹, Masrie Getenet⁵, Kiddus Yitbarek⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, Ethiopia.
² Department of Environmental health sciences and Technology, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, Ethiopia.
³ School of Nursing and Midwifery, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, Ethiopia.
⁴ Department of Health, Behavior, and Society, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, Ethiopia.
⁵ Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, Ethiopia.
⁶ Department of health policy and management, Jimma University, Jimma, Oromia, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Background: Community attitude towards mental health problems and help-seeking behavior plays a major role in designing effective community based mental health interventions. This study aimed to assess the attitude, help-seeking behavior, and associated factors of the Jimma zone community towards mental health and mental health problems.

Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed. A respondent from each of the 423 systematically selected households was interviewed using a pretested, structured, and interviewer-administered questionnaire. Accordingly, a community's attitude towards mental health problems was measured by the adapted version of the "Community Attitude towards Mentally Ill questionnaire (CAMI)" and help-seeking behavior was measured by a general help-seeking questionnaire. Data were entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 23.0 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to determine the independent predictors of the outcome variable.

Results: Among the total 420 study participants (197,46.9%) of them had an overall unfavorable attitude towards mental illness. The majority (153,36.4%) of the study participants agreed on avoidance of anyone who has mental health problems and (150,35.7%) participants described marrying a person with a mental health problem or recovered from the problem is foolishness. Moreover, regression analysis showed family monthly income (AOR = 0.24, 95%CI:0.06-0.91) and occupational status (AOR = 0.57, 95%CI:0.34-0.96) were found to be the predictors of community attitude towards mental health problems. The study finding also revealed a significant number of the respondents preferred non- medical treatment approaches.

Conclusion: Almost half of the respondents had an unfavorable attitude towards mental health problems and the traditional and religious help-seeking intention was high. This suggests the need for designing effective community based mental health interventions to improve the general public attitude and help-seeking behavior towards mental health problems.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Ethiopia
Female
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice*
Help-Seeking Behavior*
Humans
Male
Mental Disorders / epidemiology
Mental Disorders / psychology*
Middle Aged
Social Stigma
Socioeconomic Factors

Grants and funding

Yonas Tesfaye has received the fund. Jimma University has funded this research. https://www.ju.edu.et/ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.