Assessment of Knowledge Regarding the Rights of Mentally Ill Person among People Attending OPD?s of Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: It was estimated that over 1.1 billion people worldwide had a mental disorder in 2016.1 An estimated 4.5 million in the world today suffer from the severest forms of brain disorders, schizophrenia, and manic -depressive illness. Despite the availability of the treatments nearly two-thirds of people with a known mental disorder never seek help from a health professional due to stigma, discrimination, and negligence. Human rights are those rights inherited in every human being under being a person and fundamental to our existence, without which we cannot live as human beings. The strong stigma attached to mental illness is an alarming factor that leads to a discriminatory and unfair attitude towards those suffering from it. Methods: A descriptive study was conducted among 100 people attending OPD's of tertiary care hospitals to assess the level of knowledge regarding the rights of mentally ill patients. After obtaining the ethical clearance, the data was collected using a self -administered, self-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire had two sections: Section A for Socio -demographic data, and Section B for assessing the knowledge. The data was analyzed by using Descriptive Statistics and the Chi -square test was used to find out the association and selected demographic variables values and the pvalue of 0.05 (p<0.05) was accepted as statistically significant the majority of the samples, or 50%, had average knowledge, 24% had good knowledge, and the remaining 26% had a bad understanding on the rights of mentally ill patients, according to the knowledge interpretation. The Pearson Chi -Square test was used to assess the association between knowledge score and demographic variables (age, gender, educational qualification, financial dependency, present residential area, and history of mental illness in the family). In the present study, apart from the history of mental illness in the family, there was no significant difference in the association between sociodemographic variables and the knowledge score of the participants. Conclusion: This study sheds light on the fact that the knowledge level regarding the rights of mentally ill patients is meagre among ordinary people. Further research and implementation of strategies to improve the knowledge and practices are warranted to advance the care of mentally ill patients and mitigate the stigma.