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International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Knowledge and Attitudes towards Person with Mental Illness: A Cross-Sectional Study among Community in Kuala Langat, Selangor, Malaysia

Yasheni Sambanthan, Nur Adibah Solihin Sulaiman, Mohd Noor Mamat

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v13-i12/20322

Open access

Mental illnesses are health conditions that involve changes in emotion, thinking, behaviour or a combination of these. It can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, income, social status, race, religion or background. It is important for the community to have positive attitude towards the mentally ill so that they would seek early treatment without any fear of stigma. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 140 respondents recruited using a simple random sampling method. A validated questionnaire was given to all respondents that fit the inclusion criteria. The general objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and attitude towards person with mental illness among community in Kuala Langat, Selangor. The findings revealed that majority of community in Kuala Langat has good knowledge on mental illness and positive attitude towards person with mental illness. In this study, there is no statistically significant association between selected socio-demographic data (gender, age and level of education) with knowledge and attitude towards the person with mental illness. There is a very weak positive correlation between knowledge and attitude towards the person with mental illness. The finding shows that those with good knowledge on mental illness have favourable attitudes towards the mentally ill.

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(Sambanthan et al., 2023)
Sambanthan, Y., Sulaiman, N. A. S., & Mamat, M. N. (2023). Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Person with Mental Illness: A Cross-Sectional Study among Community in Kuala Langat, Selangor, Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 13(12), 4692-4703.