Impact of school mental health programme: attitudes about mental health among female school children

ABSTRACT

An observational study was carried out in three girls schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad to evaluate the impact of school mental health programme on the mental health related knowledge and attitudes of the pupils using an indigenously developed 20 item questionnaire. Thirty girl students of class eighth from each of the three schools were randomly selected for the study. The results show significantly better scores on items for mental health related knowledge and attitudes in school having an active mental health programme as compared to those without the programme, [mean scores 23.3, 17.00 and 18.2 respectively]. Exclusion of scores for four general health items resulted in further enhancing this difference [mean scores 21.9 and 14.06 and 16.18 respectively]. The results show that exposure to the school mental health programme leads to a positive change in the knowledge and attitudes of students about mental health issues in the government run rural school compared to a government run rural and privately run urban school having no exposure to such a programme. There is a need to initiate school mental health progammes to bring about a positive change in the perceptions of the community about mental health issues with children being the agents of change