Biomaterial Database

Scaling community attitudes toward the mentally ill. 1981

S M Taylor, and M J Dear

The measurement of public attitudes toward the mentally ill has taken on new significance since the introduction of community-based mental health care. Previous attitude scales have been constructed and applied primarily in a professional context. This article discusses the development and application of a new set of four scales explicitly designed to measure community attitudes toward the mentally ill. The scales represent dimensions included in previous instruments, specifically, authoritarianism, benevolence, social restrictiveness, and community mental health ideology, but are expressed in terms of an almost completely new set of items that emphasize community contact with the mentally ill and mental health facilities. Data from a study of community attitudes about neighborhood mental health facilities in Toronto are used to test the internal and external validity of the scales. Results of the analysis provide strong support for the validity of the scales and demonstrate their usefulness as explanatory and predictive variables for studying community response to mental health facilities.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D009864	Ontario	A province of Canada lying between the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec. Its capital is Toronto. It takes its name from Lake Ontario which is said to represent the Iroquois oniatariio, beautiful lake. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p892 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p391)
D011795	Surveys and Questionnaires	Collections of data obtained from voluntary subjects. The information usually takes the form of answers to questions, or suggestions.	Community Survey,Nonrespondent,Questionnaire,Questionnaires,Respondent,Survey,Survey Method,Survey Methods,Surveys,Baseline Survey,Community Surveys,Methodology, Survey,Nonrespondents,Questionnaire Design,Randomized Response Technique,Repeated Rounds of Survey,Respondents,Survey Methodology,Baseline Surveys,Design, Questionnaire,Designs, Questionnaire,Methods, Survey,Questionnaire Designs,Questionnaires and Surveys,Randomized Response Techniques,Response Technique, Randomized,Response Techniques, Randomized,Survey, Baseline,Survey, Community,Surveys, Baseline,Surveys, Community,Techniques, Randomized Response
D003155	Community Mental Health Centers	Facilities which administer the delivery of psychologic and psychiatric services to people living in a neighborhood or community.	CMHC
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000367	Age Factors	Age as a constituent element or influence contributing to the production of a result. It may be applicable to the cause or the effect of a circumstance. It is used with human or animal concepts but should be differentiated from AGING, a physiological process, and TIME FACTORS which refers only to the passage of time.	Age Reporting,Age Factor,Factor, Age,Factors, Age
D000533	Altruism	Belief or practice of selfless concern for others.	Humanitarianism,Prosocial Behavior,Behavior, Prosocial,Behaviors, Prosocial,Prosocial Behaviors
D001290	Attitude	An enduring, learned predisposition to behave in a consistent way toward a given class of objects, or a persistent mental and/or neural state of readiness to react to a certain class of objects, not as they are but as they are conceived to be.	Sentiment,Attitudes,Opinions,Opinion,Sentiments
D001318	Authoritarianism	The personality pattern or syndrome consisting of behavioral and attitudinal characteristics reflecting a preoccupation with the factors of power and authority in interpersonal relationships.	Authoritarianisms
D001523	Mental Disorders	Psychiatric illness or diseases manifested by breakdowns in the adaptational process expressed primarily as abnormalities of thought, feeling, and behavior producing either distress or impairment of function.	Mental Illness,Psychiatric Diseases,Psychiatric Disorders,Psychiatric Illness,Behavior Disorders,Diagnosis, Psychiatric,Mental Disorders, Severe,Psychiatric Diagnosis,Illness, Mental,Mental Disorder,Mental Disorder, Severe,Mental Illnesses,Psychiatric Disease,Psychiatric Disorder,Psychiatric Illnesses,Severe Mental Disorder,Severe Mental Disorders
D012737	Sex Factors	Maleness or femaleness as a constituent element or influence contributing to the production of a result. It may be applicable to the cause or effect of a circumstance. It is used with human or animal concepts but should be differentiated from SEX CHARACTERISTICS, anatomical or physiological manifestations of sex, and from SEX DISTRIBUTION, the number of males and females in given circumstances.	Factor, Sex,Factors, Sex,Sex Factor