Reducing attitude toward the stigma of post-restraint individuals with mental illness: A pre-experimental study on FGD-Based mental health education

Abstract

Background: Stigma refers to socially constructed negative meanings, labels, and stereotypes that lead to fear, social distancing, discrimination, and exclusion toward individuals with mental illness. Stigma toward people with post-restraint mental illness is still high, mainly due to limited mental health literacy within the community and strong cultural beliefs in agricultural communities that view mental illness as a disgrace. Focus group discussions (FGD) facilitate interactive dialogue, collective reflection, and social learning processes, making it more suitable for targeting attitude change and stigma reduction because it addresses both cognitive and social dimensions of stigma.

Purpose: This study aimed to assess the effect of mental health education, conducted through focus group discussions, on reducing community attitudes toward the stigma of Post-Restraint Individuals with Mental Illness.

Methods: This study employed a pre-experimental one-group pre-posttest design, involving 40 respondents who were purposively selected. The intervention consisted of four FGD sessions conducted over one month. The level of stigma was measured using the Community Attitudes Toward the Mentally Ill questionnaire, and data were analyzed using descriptive frequencies and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test.

Results: The results showed a decrease in the level of high stigma from 90.0% to 52.5%, and an increase in the level of low stigma from 10.0% to 47.5%. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test results showed significant differences before and after the intervention (p = 0.000). FGDs allowed participants to reflect on their views, share their experiences, and gain a better understanding of people with mental illness, thus reducing attitude toward the stigma of people with post-restraint mental illness.

Conclusions: Based on these findings, it can be concluded that mental health education through the FGD method is effective in reducing community attitude toward stigma of people with post-restraint mental illness.