Beliefs and attitudes of psychiatric outpatients toward mental disorders and antidepressants

Abstract

Introduction: The presentstudy aims to investigate a group of young adult psychiatric outpatients’knowledge of and attitude toward mental disorder and antidepressants, anddetermine the relevant factors affecting them.Methods: Thestudy included 81 patients attending the psychiatric outpatient clinic,diagnosed with adjustment disorders, depression and/or anxiety disorder basedon DSM-5 criteria, and met the research requirements. The data were collectedthrough an information form for sociodemographic and clinical characteristics,a form to evaluate the knowledge of and attitudes toward the use ofantidepressants, and based on the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness Scale (BMI).Severity of depression and anxiety was evaluated with Beck’s DepressionInventory and Beck’s Anxiety Inventory. Results: Regarding agegroups, individuals in the 26-32 age group had higher overall scores. Thepatients with major depression were found to have higher BMI scores. The linearregression analysis revealed that age, education, depression severity andattitudes toward antidepressants were the factors associated with the overallBMI scoresConclusions: This studysuggests that some sociodemographic variables, i.e. (age and educationalstatue), severity of depression and attitudes toward antidepressants are likelyinfluence the beliefs toward mental disorders.Keywords: Mental disorders, beliefs,attitudes, antidepressants

Keywords

• mental hastalıklar
• inançlar
• tutumlar
• antidepresanlar
• mental disorders
• beliefs
• attitudes
• antidepressants