Attitudes of Psychiatric Hospital Staff Towards Mental Illness and Patients’ Satisfaction with Psychiatric Services

Patient’s satisfaction with the mental health care services is a vital component determining effectiveness of management, and is rarely studied. Attitudes towards mental illness of the staff delivering psychiatric services can have direct implication on the care they are providing. We aimed at assessing patients’ satisfaction with the psychiatric services, and exploring the attitudes of nursing and ward-attendant staff of a tertiary care mental health setup of India, towards mental illness and association with their social and job related factors. Thirty hospital staff were assessed on Community attitude towards mental illness scale and 30 in-patients on Client satisfaction inventory. The results showed positive attitudes in hospital staff (138 ± 13.6) with corroborative good satisfaction towards hospital care received by patients (69.6 ± 14.4). Nursing-staff had better attitude in comparison to ward-attendants, condemning authoritarianism and social restrictiveness, and encouraging community based treatment. History of suffering from a mental illness was associated with positive attitude(r = 0.415, p < 0.05). © 2016, Springer India Pvt. Ltd.