EFFECT OF A MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING PROGRAMME ON SCHOOL CHILDREN’S PERCEPTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS IN ADO ODO OTA, OGUN STATE, NIGE

Abstract

Introduction As many as one out of every four people will experience mental illness in the course of their lifetime. Persons with mental illness are often at a higher risk for a low quality of life, difficulties with learning impacting on educational attainment, lowered productivity, poverty, social problems, exposure to physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and other health problems on a long and short term basis. Despite these known and established facts, there are widespread misconceptions about mental illness across cultures, age groups and gender, often associated with negative attitudes and behaviour towards persons with mental illness. Childhood has been recognized as a period where attitudes, beliefs and concepts about the world are formed. Therefore providing correct information to this age group may serve as a form of early intervention that will help to shape their perception of mental illness before they reach adulthood where opinions are fully formed and difficult to change. This study therefore evaluated the effectiveness of a mental health training programme on school children’s knowledge of mental illness, as well as their attitude and social disposition towards persons with mental illness. Methodology This was a quasi-experimental study carried out in Ado-Odo Ota local government area (LGA), Ogun state, Southwest Nigeria. Schools in two administrative wards that were about 2 kilometres apart were allocated into Control and Intervention groups respectively. A total of 205 secondary school children participated in the study. At baseline, both study groups completed the School Health Questionnaire (SHQ) and the Knowledge, Attitude and Social Distance (KASD) questionnaire. The intervention group received a 5-hour training program on mental health awareness, which utilised multiple teaching methods such as lectures, discussion and drama. At the immediate-post intervention, both groups completed the KASD questionnaire and at 3 weeks post-intervention, only the intervention group completed the KASD questionnaire and a Student Evaluation Form (SEF) which assessed the relevance of the training program. Data analysis Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents were analyzed and presented in frequencies and percentages. Socio-demographic factors associated with baseline knowledge of the mental illness, attitude and social distance towards persons with mental illness, as well as the difference in knowledge, attitude and social distance between the participants in Control and Intervention groups before and after training were assessed using Chi-square. The difference in mean knowledge, attitude and social distance scores between the control and intervention groups was evaluated using the Independent Sample t-test. Students’ evaluation of the training programme was presented in frequencies and percentages. Result Using the mean score and 2 standard deviations obtained from the knowledge items of the KASD as an average score, 39.6% scored above average at baseline, 34.7% had an average score and 25.7% scored below average. Over half scored in the ‘indifferent’ to persons with mental illness (57.9%) range on the attitude items and on social distance items (57.7%). There was a positive change in the knowledge (mean scores: baseline=21.0; immediate post-training=26.2; 3-weeks post-training=25.8; p<0.001) and attitude (mean scores: Baseline 4.8; Immediate post training=5.8; 3-weeks post-training=6.1; p=0.004) of participants in the intervention group between baseline and at immediate-post-training assessments, which was sustained at 3 weeks post-training. The majority (98.8%) of the children reported that the training was useful to them and that they learned most from lectures (48.5%) and drama (33.7%) and least from group discussion (3.6%). The children also reported that they enjoyed drama (38.6%) and lectures (38.6%) equally but enjoyed group discussion the least (7.2%). Conclusion Compared to a previous study among school children in this environment which obtained only a change in knowledge, this study revealed a sustained change in both knowledge of mental illness and attitude towards persons with mental illness at 3-weeks post-intervention. Multiple methods of teaching including the use of drama, and an increased number of training sessions maybe responsible for producing and sustaining the positive change observed in the children’s knowledge and attitude. Furthermore, participants indicated that they enjoyed and learned more from the drama sessions and that television and home videos were a major source of information about mental illness. Hence, mental health professionals may need to partner with the film industry in the production of films and home videos that contain mental health themes in order to project mental health and illness in the right perspective not only to young persons but also to the general populace.