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.com
Volume 21
International Journal of Emergency Mental
Health and Human Resilience
ISSN: 1522-4821
Mental Health 2019
March 07-08, 2019
March 07-08, 2019 | Barcelona, Spain
5
th
International Conference on
Mental Health and Human Resilience
Stigma related mental health knowledge among community health workers – a cross sectional assessment
Vikram Arunachalam
1
, Savitha S K
2
, Vedavathi B J
2
and
Anish V Cherian
3
1
National Urban Health Mission, India
2
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, India
3
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, India
T
he 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 centres 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 Behaviour
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.
drvikrm@gmail.comInt J Emerg Ment Health 2019, Volume 21
DOI: 10.4172/1522-4821-C1-027