Perceived Causes of Mental Illness among Patients with Psychiatric Disorders in Kaduna State, North-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Although it has been established that mentally ill individuals experience social stigma during the course of therapy, some studies suggests that perception about the illness can affect patients’ readiness and willingness to seek and adhere to treatment regimen (Averous et al., 2018 and Argungu et al., 2018) This study aims to assess the perceived causes of mental illness among patients with psychiatric disorders in Kaduna state. Two objectives were stated: To assess the perceived causes of mental illness among patients with PD, find the relationship between socio-demographic/clinical Information and perceived causes of mental illness among patients with PD. A descriptive cross-sectional research designed was employed with quantitative data collection approach. A total of 325 patients with mental illness were recruited from Out-patients of the only 3 mental health institutions in Kaduna state namely; the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Barnawa, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital and Barau Dikko teaching Hospital, Kaduna. Researcher administered questionnaire was used as the tool for data collection. Systematic sampling technique was employed to select the participants based on the inclusion and the exclusion criteria.  A total of 291 questionnaires were finally analyzed (response rate of 89.5%) using SPSS version 23.0. The result revealed that the mean age of the participants is 36.5 years, majority of the participants are Hausa by ethnicity, literate and lives in the urban area. The majority of the participants perceived mental illness to be caused by Substance Abuse (87.7%), Brain malfunction (86.9%), Physical injury to the brain (86.9%), Stress and overthinking (84.5%), Traumatic life event (80.4%) and evil spirit (73.8%). Relationship was found between perceived causes of mental illness and monthly income (p=0.035), perceived causes of mental illness and psychiatric diagnosis (p=0.018). Based on the findings of the study it was recommended that there is need for health care providers to do more in updating their knowledge as well as educating patients with mental illness on evidence-based risk factors and causes of mental disorders, media organizations ware also encouraged to take part in public enlightenments on that.

Keywords: Perception, Causes of mental illness, Patients with mental illness