Adolescents' perceptions of mental health problems

Abstract

It is known that the general public has its own way in defining or labelling mental illness and, therefore, holds a specific attitude towards those whom they perceive as mentally ill. Several studies have been undergone to explore the existing attitudes towards mental illness. However, there is relatively little information about how young individuals look at the mentally ill. The purpose of this study was to discover how young people perceive those suffering from a mental illness and to determine whether they hold positive or negative attitudes. In order to achieve these aims, a modified version of the Attribution Questionnaire 27 (Corrigan, 2003), was administered to a group of adolescent students. The results indicate that the adolescents who participated in this study did not seem to hold the person with the mental illness, Charlie, personally responsible for his condition, and he was likely to receive their help. The participants seemed not to show anger towards Charlie and apparently felt pity for him. Even though the sample of adolescents might not have viewed the mentally ill person as dangerous, they still seemed to fear him. The adolescents of this study seemed neither to agree nor disagree with avoiding the mentally ill individual or segregating him from the normal population. They also seemed to have doubts about the extent of coercion into treatment. Overall, the sample of adolescents seemed to hold positive attitudes towards the mentally ill.