Attitude of rural people on the etiology of psychiatric disorders, Bandar Abbas, Iran

Individual's beliefs and attitudes toward illnesses, the reasons and types of treatments can play a great role in selecting a specific treatment by patients. We aimed, in this study to investigated, some beliefs and opinions affecting psychiatric diseases and related treatments. In this cross sectional study‚ 2500 rural people of Bandar Abbas were examined. The main tool of the study was a researcher-made questionnaire consisting 27 questions related to the people's beliefs about psychiatric disorders and their treatments. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS using χ2, t and ANOVA tests. The total score of attitude was 24.6±5.15. The associated factors were marriage, education Job, sex. The statistical analysis shows this relation is meaningful. 48% of the subjects believed that taking psychiatric medicine result into addiction. 58.5% considered marriage as a positive factor in healing psychiatric diseases. 31% believed that ghosts and ginns cause psychiatric disorders. Among all associated factors education has an outstanding role. It was found that education and higher knowledge of rural people, and increasing outreach worker's awareness of psychiatric disorders and related symptoms, have an effective role in choosing right method of treatment.