Awareness on Mental Illness Among General Population

Mental illness is an age-old problem of mankind as recorded in the literature of the oldest civilizations the world over.WHO estimates that globally 450 million people suffer from mental disorder. The public view towards mental illness has been considered as negative, stigmatized, uninformed and fearful entity right from the ancient time till date which varies according to race, ethnicity, religion, culture, tradition, and education of the rural and urban community. This contributes to the ill treatment of the patient with mental illness. Adulthood is the time for ¿settling down.¿ At this point of time they assume many roles such as spouse, parent and breadwinner; and necessary to develop a caring attitude. and they form the majority of population. Therefore, the adults play a significant role in caring mentally ill person in the family as well in the community setting and also variations in the knowledge of normal and abnormal mental health makes a significant difference in their caring attitude towards the one with mental illness. So here is a attempt made to assess the knowledge and attitude towards mental illness among adults and explore the dimensions of views expressed.