Mental health literacy of nurses working in psychiatry clinics and general clinics

The aim of this study is to determine the mental health literacy of nurses working in psychiatry clinic sand general clinics. The population of the descriptive and comparative study consisted of nurses working in the general clinics of the training and research hospital (n=402) and the mental health hospital in the same province (n=88). Sample selection was carried out by proportional element sampling method and the sample size was calculated as 207. Research data were obtained through the Personal Information Form for personal and familial characteristics, the "Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS)" and "General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12)". In the evaluation phase of the data, number-percentage calculations, Skewness - Kurtosis Test for the normality distribution of the variables, Kruskal - Wallis and Mann-Whitney U Tests were used for the data that were not normally distributed. It was determined that 76.3% of the nurses participating in the study were women. 59.2% of the nurses are in the 31 - 60 age groups. 61.4% of the nurses are married. 87.4% of the participant sare under graduate sand 84.1% of them care for in patients. 40.6% of nurses have been in their profession for more than 11 years. The mean GHQ -12 score of the nurses was found to be 0.66 ± 1.5, and the mean MHLS score was 93.86 ± 15.83.According to the results obtained from the study, the mental health literacy score of the nurses was found to be moderate, and the scores of nurses working in mental health were statistically significant compared to those working in general clinics. A significant difference was found in age, education level, work position, duration of work, having received in-service training on mental issues, and having experienced the mental illness one self. Gender was only found correlated with "access to information" subscale, just like marital status was only found correlated with "identifying risk factors" subscale. In-service trainings should be organized to increase mental health literacy, and improving trainings should be planned on stigmatization for mental illnesses. It is recommended that not only nurses working in psychiatry clinics but also nurses working in general clinics attend these trainings.