Objectives: To investigate public's knowledge on mental illness and their attitudes toward mentally ill in Tehran, Iran.
Design: A cross-sectional, population-based doorstep survey using random sampling to access a representative sample of individuals aged 18-65 years.
Setting: All 22 municipality districts of Tehran in August 2004.
Participants: 1210 participants completed the questionnaire. Every individual had the same probability to be sampled.
Main outcome measures: Main outcomes were knowledge about and attitudes towards mental illness/ people with mental illness, using a questionnaire including relevant questions based on the literature and views of a panel of health professionals.
Results: Most of respondents (n= 686, 57%) possessed quite fair knowledge (gave correct answers to about half of the questions). Although participants with perceived history of mental illness or experience of close contact with mentally ill had significantly a greater amount of knowledge (p<0.001 and p=0.02, respectively), their level of knowledge was fair too. There was a strongly stigmatising attitude in most (84%) respondents towards mentally ill expressing negative stereotypes and desire for social distance. Despite the perceived history of mental illness in 323 (27%) of the respondents, only 49% of these people had actually sought treatment. Perceived stigmatising attitudes in the society was significantly associated with no help seeking behaviors (p= 0.034, OR= 0.4, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.95).
There was a significant positive association between experience of close contact with mentally ill people and attitudes towards them (P=0.005).
Conclusions: The study findings suggest that it is essential to plan programmes to promote the level of the knowledge of the general public and to improve their attitude towards people with mental illness.