The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of university students toward mental illness and to determine if nursing students had more favorable attitudes toward mental illness than those of nonnursing students within the university.
The subjects were 177 nursing female students, 142 nonnursing female students, 221 nonnursing male students in chungnam national university in Korea, from December 1 to December 7, 1985.
The instrument used for measuring attitudes was a questionaire developed by Cohen and Struening (1962) referred to as the "Opinion about Mental Illness Scale (O.M.I.)" made up to 51 Likert-type items.
The results were summerized as follows:
1. Nursing female students indicated more positive attitudes toward mental illness than those of nonnursing female students and nonnursing male students.
2. Attitudes toward mental illness of senior nursing female students showed Positive attitudes in authoritarianism(A), benevolence(B), and interpersonal etiology(E) and showed negative attitudes in mental hygine ideology(C) and social restrictiveness(D).
3. Attitudes toward mental illness of senior nonnursing female students showed positive attitudes in benevolence(B), mental hygine ideology(C), social restrictiveness(D), and interpersonal etiology(E), and showed negative attitude in authoritarianism(A).
4. Attitudes toward mental illness of senior nonnursing male students showed positive attitudes in authoritarianism(A), and social restrictiveness(D), and showed negative attitudes in benevolence(B), mental hygine ideoiogy(C), and interpersonal etiology(E).
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