Abstract:
Abstract
Background:
Mental illness stigma acts as a major barrier that may results in disparities in access, treatment, and outcome.
Scales designed to assess stigmatising attitudes towards those with mental i
llness among health care providers are necessary to
evaluate programs designed to reduce that stigma.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the internal reliability and external validity of the Opening Minds Scale for
Health Care Providers (OM
S
-
HC)) among health staff in a Tertiary Healthcare Centre.
Materials and
Method
:
308 participants from the Jos University Teaching Hospital answered a self
-
administered
questionnaire, i.e Community Attitudes towards the Mentally Ill (CAMI) scale, and the o
pening mind scale for Health care
providers (OMS
-
HC).
Coefficient alphas were computed to obtain internal consistency estimates of reliability for the CAMI
subscales and OMS
-
HC
. Correlations of OMS
-
HC scores with CAMI scores were calculated and compared to
evaluate
concurrent validity.
Results:
The result showed internal consistency of OMS
-
HC, The cronbach’s alpha was 0.985 reflecting high level of internal
consistency within the 20 item scale. The concurrent validity scores were: 0.983 and 0.990 for Pears
on and spearman
correlation coefficient respectively (P<0.001).
Conclusion
:
The findings from our study showed a good and strong correlation between OMS
-
HC and the chosen gold
standard (CAMI).
Hence OMS is valid and reliable, suitable for clinical and res
earch purposes
