Psychological Reports, 1976, 38, 565-566. @ Psychological Reports 1976 ATTITUDES O F MENTAL PATIENTS A N D MENTAL H E A L T H PROFESSIONALS ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS JAMES K. MORRISON Capital District Psychiatric Center, Cohoes, N. Y. JEFFREY S. NEVID Samaritan Hospital Mental Healtb Clinic, Troy, N. Y. Summary.-In support of the construct validity of the Client Attitude Questionnaire, 16 psychologists and 25 social workers reported attitudes more characteristic of the controversial psychosocial position about "mental illness" than 20 psychiatrists, 23 psychiatric nurses, or 40 previously hospitalized psychiatric outpatients. T h e Client Attitude Questionnaire, a highly reliable (Morrison & Becker, 1775) 20-item rating scale, is a measure of a respondent's degree of endorsement of the controversial "psychosocial" approach to psychiatric ideology and practice, identified with the writings of Szasz ( 1 7 7 0 ) and Sarbin and Mancuso ( 1 7 7 0 ) , among others. In the present study further evidence of construct validity was sought. Lower scores (hence, less acceptance of the psychosocial position) were predicted for professional~(nurses, psychiatrists) in disciplines involving extensive training within "medical model" based approaches than for professionals (psychologists, social workers) more oriented in training toward nonmedical, social learning approaches. Secondly, since previously hospitalized psychiatric outpatients would have more than likely been exposed (while in a mental hospital) to a medical model orientation toward mental illness, their attitudes, as given by questionnaire scores, were expected to be less oriented to the psychosocial position than the attitudes of psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric outpatients never hospital~zedfor psychiatric reasons. All mental health professionals employed by two community facilities ( a small community mental health center and a local medical center) in a particular city were canvassed. T h e professional sample consisted of 2 0 psychiatrists, 23 psychiatric nurses, 1 6 psychologists, and 25 social workers. Both the previously hospitalized ( n = 4 1 ) and non-hospitalized ( n = 2 0 ) patients were randomly selected from a sample of 82 outpatients receiving psychiatric services from the same community mental health center satellite clinic. The means and standard deviations of the groups are resented in Table 1. Comparisons by t tests showed, as expected, that psychologists' reported attitudes were more oriented to the psychosocial position than the attitudes of social workers ( t = 2.17, df = 37, p < .05), nurses ( t = 4.17, df = 37, p < .001), psychiatrists ( t = 3.80, df = 35, p < .001), and previously hospitalized pa-

J. K MORRISON

566

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J. S. NEVID

TABLE 1

MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR CLIENT ATI'ITUDE QUESTIONNAIRE SCORES A u t o s SUBJ E ~ S Subjects Psychologists Social Workers Psychiatric Nurses Psychiatrists Mental Patients Previously Non-hospitalized Previously Hospitalized

M

SD

25 23 20

49.25 45.76 42.87 42.80

5.24 4.67 4.30 5.15

20 40

42.75 40.71

5.33 5.17

N 16

tients ( t = 3.80, df = 55, p < .001). Secondly, the attitudes of the sampled social workers were more consistent with the psychosocial position than the reported attitudes of nurses ( t = 2.23, df = 46, p < .025), psychiatrists ( t = 2.06, df = 44, p < .025), and previously hospitalized patients ( t = 3.99, df = 64, p < .001). The results indicated a nonsignificant trend ( p < . l o ) for the attitudes of previously hospitalized patients to be less oriented to the psychosocial approach than previously non-hospitalized patients. The failiue to attain significant differences in this case may suggest that a "medical model" orientation is not learned only from a hospital setting .but also from the popular media, e.g., "Mental illness is an illness like any other," and the traditional orientation of state-supported outpatient clinics. The results attest to the construct validity of the Client Attitude Questionnaire and suggest that the variety of attitudes toward mental illness may often lead to divergent staff-client expectations for service. Orientation seminars (Morrison, 1976) focusing on these differences may at least partially resolve this problem. REFERENCES

MORRISON, J. K. Demythologizin mental patieno' attitudes toward mental illness: an

empirical study. J o w n d o B ~ o m m u n fiychology, i~ 1976, in press. & BECKER,R. Seminar-induced change in a community psychiatric team's reported attitudes toward "mental illness." J o m a l of Community PsychoG ogy, 1975, 3, 281-284. SARBIN, T. R., & MANCUSO. J. C. Failure of a moral enterprix: attitudes of the public toward mental illness. Journal of Consulting and C znrcal Psychology, 1970, 35, 159-173. S Z A ~ Z , T. Ideology and insmity. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

MORRISON, J. K.,

Accepted February 9, 1976.

Attitudes of mental patients and mental health professionals about mental illness.

Psychological Reports, 1976, 38, 565-566. @ Psychological Reports 1976 ATTITUDES O F MENTAL PATIENTS A N D MENTAL H E A L T H PROFESSIONALS ABOUT MENT...
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