600 Greek people's attitudes towards family hosts for mentally ill persons

Abstract

IntroductionFamily hosts for people with mental diseases is a quite new institution in Greece [1,2].ObjectivesThe study investigated Greek people's attitudes toward mentally ill people and their institutionalisationAimsThe survey investigated Greek society's attitudes and bias concerning Family Host Programs for the mentally ill.MethodsQuestionnaires were administered to a sample of six hundred (600) people in the cities of Patras, Pyrgos and Mesologgi, Southern Greece from May the 27th to June the 12thResultsOf the respondents, 47.3% were men while 52.7% were women. Most citizens were not familiar with the term “Host Family” and were not aware of this new institution (62.7%). However, many knew a person that suffered from mental illness environment (35.7%), but they thought that mentally ill people would be rather a “burden” to foster families (32.2%).ConclusionsAlthough many people knew well a person with mental illness, they were not aware of psychiatric reforms and community based programs. In conclusion, psycho-educational programs contributing to repel bias towards psychiatric patients should be implemented.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.