Some Factors Affecting College Students' Willingness to Interact with Hospitalized Mental Patients

Since the Mental Health Service Acts of 1963 and 1965, increasing numbers of psychiatric patients have been discharged back into communities for continuing treatment. Many comi~unities have reacted negatively to this influx of ex -patients. Since the nature of the public's reaction affects the establishmen t of community facilities as we ll as the course of ex-pati en ts' stays in the community, it is important for mental health professionals to better understand public r eac tion to menta l patient s. Since multiple factors influence behavior, the primary purpose of the present investigation was to simultaneously in vestiga te, through the use of a multivariate design, a varie ty of subject , situational and patient variables that affect people 's reactions toward mental patients. A second purpose wa s to develop an instrument to measure people's behavior toward menta l pa ti ent s. A Behavioral-Intentions measure wa s developed to assess people's willingness to int erac t with hospitalized menta l patients. In order to determine the usefulness of the Behavioral-Intention measure as a substi tute for subjects ' actual behavior, subjects' overt behavior was also recorded and the degree of the relationship between s~bjects' Behavioral -I ntention scores and their overt behavior was assessed . Subjects were 45 male and 45 female undergraduate students (Total= 90) . Subj ec ts ' attitudes to war d mental patients were assesse d using the semantic differential. The Behavioral-Intention measure consisted of eight hypothetical situations in which subjects rated their willingness to interact with hospitalized mental patients on a six-point scale. Subjects were contacted by the experi menter two weeks after completing the Behavioral-Intention measure and asked to engage in one of the activities described on the Behavioral-Intention meas ure. Subjects' responses were recorded on the Overt Behavior measure. The factors of subject sex and attitude toward mental patients, patient socio-economic st a tus and the social inti macy and potential disclosure of the encounter wer e analyzed using a 3 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 analysis of variance. The Behavioral-Intention measure was employed as the dependent measur e. The relationship bet wee n the Behavioral-Intention (BI) and Overt Behavior (OB) mea sure was assessed using Gamma, which indicates the probability of like ordering. People were significantly more willing to meet with a patient in situations of low intimacy as compared to situations of high intimacy. People with positive attitudes were significantly mor e willing to meet with patients as compare d to people wi th neutral or negative attitudes regardless of whether the meeting was to remain confidential or be publicized. When the meeting was to be publicized, only people with negative attitudes indicated significantly less willingness to meet with a patient as compared to when it would remain private. Women indicated si gn ific an tly less willingness to engage in an activity with patients when the activity would be publicized as co mpared to when it would remain confidential. Men however, showed no difference in th ei r willingness to interact with patients depending on the potential disclosure of the mee ting. No main effect sex difference was found. Finally, the socio-economic status of the patient did not influence people's willingness to interact with a patient. In add ition, men and women with neutral attitudes responded differently whe n contacted by the experimenter and asked to come in to meet a patient. Women, once contacted, were more likely to attend the meeting , wherea s men were more likely to refuse to attend. The Gamma co-efficient of . 411 was found for the relationship between the BI and OB meas ures. Although considerable variance is still unaccounted for by this relationship, this magnitude of as sociation is noteworthy given the complexities of the social situation; it compares favorably with other BI-OB relationships reported in the literatu re an d it indic ate s that the BI measure was a reasonable dependent measure for this study.