Background

Mental illness has regularly been a significant challenge and is becoming more and more
relvent in today’s fast paced world, according to world health organization, mental health is “ a
stste of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own ability, can cope with the
normal stresses of can work productively and fruitfully, and able to make a contribution to his
or her community.(2)(1)

Mental health and physical and social health are closely interwoven fibers that are vital for
every individual. Mental health extends beyond diagnosed mental disorder. According to world
health organization mental illness is a term used to describe a broad range of mental and
emotional disturbance affecting individual thinking, feeling, decision, making, mood, daily
function as well as ability to related to others. Mental illness cause are vary wide like long-term
stress , child abuse , drug and alcohol misuse, chemical imbalances and so on. according to
WHO, in ethiopia there is increasing trend of mental health problems this due to urbanizations
effects (7). According to WHO study made in 2019, 1 in every 8 people or 970 million people
around the world were living with mental disorder with anxiety and depressive disorder the
most common.(3).

Attitudes and belief about mental illness are molded by personal knowledge about mental
illness, knowing and introduction with someone living with mental illness, cultural stereotype
about mental illness, media stores and familiarity with institutional practice and restriction ( eg,
health insurance restrictions, employment restriction; adoption restriction)(4). In many African
society including Ethiopia mental illness is believed to be either an outcome of familial defect
or the handwork of evil machinations. These negative beliefs results in psychiatric patient being
seen s out casts and people who should be quarantined.(5)

Knowledge of the community regarding mental health problem are a major impaction on the
attitude, the helped-seeking path and prevention of stigma and discrimination against patient
with mental health problems. It also the corn stone for designing evidence-based community
mental intervention. only about 20 % of adults with a diagnosable mental disorder or self-
reported mental health condition saw a mental health provider in previous years. Embracement
associated with accessing mental health services in one of many barriers that cause people to
hide their symptoms and prevent them from getting necessary treatment(4).

One of the other main cause of the underuse of mental care appears to be stigma, which
restricts patent from seeking help from medical professionals and other services of fered at stat
and also many patients with mental disorders seem to turn to traditional healer before
consulting their doctors. Even though mental illness affect many people around the world,
mental illness unlike other chronic physical disorder like heart and hypertension, is associated
with a number of misunderstandings and myths(6). This stigmatization denies psychiatric
patient the empathy and understanding traditionally bestowed on the sick African society (5).
globally, patent with mental with mental disorders tend to feel stigmatized by negative societal
attitudes, impacting their decisions regarding seeking help being diagnosed and receiving
treatment.(8)
1. WHO mentalhealth: a state well-being.on http://www.who.int/factifiles/mental_health?
accessed 30 july 2019
2. attitudes toward mental illness: resualt from thebehaviotal risk factor survellance
system. Atlanta(GA); CENTER for disease control and prevention; 2012 6pdf
3. Bagchi A et al. Int j Community Med public health.2020 mar;7(3):1078-1083
4. Who mental health: mental disorders . on Http://www.who.int news_room? fact-sheet/
mental disorder/ accessed 8 june 2022
5. African journal of psychiatry. JULY 2011 9 pdf
6. Hitches, L(2008) aa why is mental health nursing unpopular. Nursing times. net accessed
at December 19 2011.
7. Ahmed et al. int j mental health syst (2019) 13;5 1 pdf
8. albarqi m, almaqhawi a. knowledge and attitude toward mental illness amoungthe
population at king faisal university, Saudi Arabia.fam med prim care rev 2022 12 pdf