Abstract
People living with mental illness often face negative attitudes and discrimination in the community. Mental health professionals have an essential role to play in the stigma experienced by people living with mental illness, and their actions have the capacity to either reduce or exacerbate stigma. Despite providing professional care to consumers, negative attitudes towards mental health conditions are evident even among Mental Health Nurses (MHNs) working in acute inpatient psychiatric units. At the same time, few studies are focusing on Australian acute inpatient psychiatric units' MHNs' attitudes towards mental illness. This study aims to assess Australian acute inpatient psychiatric units' MHNs' attitudes towards mental ill health to develop an educational package to enhance or maintain their attitudes. This study used a survey design to assess MHNs' attitudes using the Mental Illness Clinicians' Attitude version-4 (MICA-v4) scale. The lower scores indicated more positive attitudes, and the higher scores indicated more negative attitudes towards mental illness. A Consensus-Based Checklist for Reporting Survey Studies (CROSS) is used to report the quality of this survey. The MICA-v4 was recorded and summed to understand the relationship between attitudes and variables for straightforward interpretation of the results. The relationship between the MICA-v4 scores and independent variables was explored using inferential statistics, including multivariate regression analysis. One hundred and three MHNs completed the MICA-v4 questionnaire using a face-to-face survey method. The results revealed that Australian mental health nurses working in the acute inpatient mental health settings showed positive attitudes towards mental illness. However, the relationship between the demographic variables and MICA-v4 showed that older age group nurses had more positive attitudes than younger nurses towards mental illness. At the same time, female nurses showed more positive attitudes towards mental illness than male nurses. In comparison, diploma-holding nurses showed more pessimistic attitudes towards mental illness than nurses holding higher qualifications. At the same time, enrolled nurses reflected more negative attitudes towards mental illness than registered nurses. Nurses with many years of experience show more positive attitudes towards mental illness than less experienced nurses. In comparison, younger nurses with higher qualifications also showed more positive attitudes towards mental illness. The results of this study may inform policymakers and researchers about the need to develop strategies to enhance or maintain the positive attitudes of MHNs nationally. Future research is required to focus on the development of exemplary strategies to maintain positive attitudes as well as the enhancement of negative attitudes among MHNs.