ABSTRACT
Mental disorders are neglected and disrespected because of community’s perception and social stigma, in turn causing increased burden to the society. There has been increase in the mental health awareness and community participation in the recent years. This compelled us to check the changing trends in attitudes in the present scenario compared to past. The current study has been done on a total of 600 subjects (1998 and 2016) and Attitude towards Mental Illness – Rating Scale (ATMI-RS) was used. Data were compared using appropriate statistics. All the groups were found to have more positive attitudes in the present compared to the past. The groups exposed to mental illness have better attitudes then unexposed in both the present and past. However, still neutral and negative attitudes are found among common population. It necessitates having more mental health campaigning and promoting awareness to destigmatize the notions regarding mental illness