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. 2017 Aug 7;17(1):289.
doi: 10.1186/s12888-017-1447-3.

Correct recognition and continuum belief of mental disorders in a nursing student population

Lee Seng Esmond Seow  1 , Boon Yiang Chua  2 , Huiting Xie  3 , Jia Wang  3 , Hui Lin Ong  2 , Edimansyah Abdin  2 , Siow Ann Chong  2 , Mythily Subramaniam  2
Affiliations

Correct recognition and continuum belief of mental disorders in a nursing student population

Lee Seng Esmond Seow et al. BMC Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: The current study aimed to explore the correct recognition of mental disorders across dementia, alcohol abuse, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), schizophrenia and depression, along with its correlates in a nursing student population. The belief in a continuum of symptoms from mental health to mental illness and its relationship with the non-identification of mental illness was also explored.

Methods: Five hundred students from four nursing institutions in Singapore participated in this cross-sectional online study. Respondents were randomly assigned to a vignette describing one of the five mental disorders before being asked to identify what the person in the vignette is suffering from. Continuum belief was assessed by rating their agreeableness with the following statement: "Sometimes we all behave like X. It is just a question of how severe or obvious this condition is".

Results: OCD had the highest correct recognition rate (86%), followed by depression (85%), dementia (77%), alcohol abuse (58%) and schizophrenia (46%). For continuum belief, the percentage of respondents who endorsed symptom continuity were 70% for depression, 61% for OCD, 58% for alcohol abuse, 56% for dementia and 46% for schizophrenia. Of concern, we found stronger continuum belief to be associated with the non-identification of mental illness after controlling for covariates.

Conclusions: There is a need to improve mental health literacy among nursing students. Almost a quarter of the respondents identified excessive alcohol drinking as depression, even though there was no indication of any mood symptom in the vignette on alcohol abuse. Further education and training in schizophrenia may need to be conducted. Healthcare trainees should also be made aware on the possible influence of belief in symptom continuity on one's tendency to under-attribute mental health symptoms as a mental illness.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Domain Specific Review Board of the National Healthcare Group, Singapore. All student participants have provided online consent to the study.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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