Eshetu Girma|Markos Tesfaye|Guenter Froeschl|Anne Maria Möller-Leimkühler|Norbert Müller|Sandra Dehning
Public Stigma against People with Mental Illness in the Gilgel Gibe Field Research Center (GGFRC) in Southwest Ethiopia
Jimma University|Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München|Jimma University|Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München|Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München|Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München|Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
background public understanding mental illnesses attitudes towards people mental illness pwmi play paramount role prevention treatment mental illness rehabilitation pwmi aim study measure public stigma pwmi factors associated stigma gilgel gibe field research center ggfrc southwest ethiopia methods communitybased crosssectional study conducted june august 2012 among 845 randomly selected respondents using community attitudes towards mentally ill cami scale intervieweradministered questionnaire data entered epidata exported stata analysis simple descriptive linear regression analyses performed identify predictors stigma pwmi results total 845 respondents 6817 rural districts mean stigma score 262 5point score majority respondents 7527 believed mental illness cured stress poverty rumination often perceived causes mental illness rural residents significantly higher stigma scores std 061 p0001 statistically significant inverse relationship found level education degree stigma std 014 p001 higher income significantly associated stigma std 007 p005 respondents higher scores perceived supernatural causes std 009 p001 perceived psychosocial biological causes std 014 p0001 significantly lower stigma levels conclusions study found undermining less avoidant attitude towards pwmi rural residents showed higher levels stigma stigma pwmi lower people explanatory concept causes mental illness higher level education information education communication causes signs nature mental illnesses would help reduce stigma