Hong Kong secondary students and mental illnesses

This paper presents the findings of a survey about the opinion of secondary school students in Hong Kong towards mental illness. A total of 2,223 subjects were drawn by random sampling method from all the secondary school students in the territory. By using a scale - Opinion about Menial Illness in Chinese Community (OMICC) - students' opinions about mental illness were surveyed. The scale, consisting of 33 items, was developed by the authors with reference to the work of Cohen and Struening, plus the input of local mental health practitioners.

Reliability analysis shows that the internal consistency of the 33 items is very high (a=0.866). Using factor analysis, six factors were identified.

They are: factor 1 (Benevolence), factor 2 (Separatism), factor 3 (Stereotyping), factor 4 (Restrictiveness), factor 5 (Pessimistic prediction), and factor 6 (Stigmatisation).

Data suggests that the sources of mental health knowledge of the students came mainly from mass media which includes TV (92.6%), and magazines (30.8%). Based on these findings, the implications for community education and promotion integration of people with mental illness are discussed.