Attitudes of Medical Practitioners to Mental Illness

The O.M.I. Scale was used to evaluate the attitudes to mental illness of a sample of 50 Australian medical practitioners. Although the scores of the Australian subjects did not differ from those of previously-tested British medical practitioners, they were significantly different to those obtained in a study of Czechoslovakian practitioners. The Australian, British and Czechoslovakian medical practitioners scored similarly on Mental Hygiene Ideology which reflects a medical model of mental illness. It was suggested that there were several disadvantages in supporting the medical model and that, through undergraduate and continuing education programs, medical practitioners should be exposed to alternative models of mental illness.