Stigma related mental health knowledge among community health workersâ????A cross sectional assessment

Author(s): Vikram Arunachalam

 

Stigma related mental health knowledge among community health workers–A cross sectional assessment

Vikram Arunachalam

National Urban Health Mission, India

                                                                                       

Abstract

 

The Accreted Social Health Activists (ASHAs) or the community health workers have been involved in improving maternal and child health over a decade in rural India. There is growing evidences that in mental health resource poor settings, a ‘task-shifting’ strategy would be advantageous, where the community or the lay health workers (like ASHAs) provides front-line mental health care, instead of mental health professional at a primary care level. However, there is limited data on delivering the mental health services delivered through ASHAs in mental health resource scarce urban slums setting. The aim of the present study is to assess the knowledge and attitude towards mental illness among ASHAs serving in government primary health centers in urban Bengaluru, India. A cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected ASHA workers (n = 150) in urban Bengaluru in the Karnataka state. Data were collected through Mental Health Knowledge Schedule (MAKS), and Reported and Intended Behavior Scale (RIBS), self-administered questionnaire designed assess mental health knowledge and attitude towards mental illness. Data were computed using SPSS. The mean age of the participants was 38.6 ± 5.68 years and educated at least tenth grade (66.1%) or above (20.2%). The mean year experience in the health field as ASHAs was 4.27 ± 2.36 years. The ASHAs had lower score on MAKS. Our results show relatively lesser knowledge about mental health among ASHAs. Thus, indicating the need to develop training module to train the ASHAs for early identification of mental illness from the community and refer to available mental health service.

 

Biography

 

Vikram Arunachalam is a Qualified Medical Doctor and Consultant Psychiatrist (National Board-certified) from India with 10 years of expertise in the field of mental health, hands on experience at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru India for 07 years. He has published more than 10 papers in reputed Peer reviewed national and International journals, He has teaching experience in psychiatry to Under-graduate medical students, social work and nursing students. He is currently in the position of Consultant Psychiatrist for District Mental Health Programmer under National Urban Health Mission, Government of Karnataka Province, India since 2016 and is involved extensively in Community Mental Health work.

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