479 Available online at www.medicinescience.org ORIGINAL RESEARCH Medicine Science 2021;10(2):479-85 Beliefs of paramedic students toward mental illness and patient Kubra Kayaoglu 1 , Eren Aslanoglu 2 1 Kovancılar Vocational School, Department of Medical Services and Techniques, Elazig, Turkey 2 Kovancılar Vocational School, Department of Opticianry, Elazig, Turkey Received 21 January 2021; Accepted 25 March 2021 Available online 09.04.2021 with doi: 10.5455/medscience.2021.01.04 Copyright@Author(s) - Available online at www.medicinescience.org Content of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Abstract The aim of this study is to examine the beliefs of paramedic students studying in a university toward mental illness and patient. 113 paramedic students studying in a university participated in this descriptive and cross-sectional study. Two forms were used to collect data of the study. The frst part including the socio-demographic characteristics was composed of 10 questions and it was prepared by the researchers in accordance with the literature. In the second part, Beliefs toward Mental Illness Scale (BMI) composed of 21 questions was used. Percentage, frequency, independent samples t-test, analysis of and kruskal wallis were used to evaluate the data. It was determined that 66.4% of the paramedic students participating in the study were involved in the age group of 18-20 years, 57.5% were female, 51.3% were 1st-year students, 61.1% were graduated from vocational school of health, 66.4% had a middle income level and 93.8% had no mental illness. It was determined that 85.8% of the students met with an individual with mental illness and 44.2% had an individual with a mental illness in their immediate surroundings. BMI subscale mean scores of the students were 29.49±8.16 for "incurability/poor social and interpersonal skills", 22.23±6.63 for "dangerousness", and 0.78±1.39 for " shame " and their total mean score was 52.51±13.46. The distribution of BMI total mean scores of the students was found to be signifcant in terms of having a someone with a psychiatric disorder in the immediate surroundings (p<0.05) and insignifcant in terms of age, gender, class, and status of having any mental illness (p>0.05).In accordance with the fndings obtained in the study, it was concluded that the students participating in the study had moderate, and even close to negative, beliefs toward mental illnesses. Developing the mental patient and disease-related awareness of paramedic students who will perform the frst intervention for urgent mental patients in their professional lives is important in terms of the efciency of the treatment and care provided for patients. Stigmatization awareness is suggested to be developed in paramedic students. Keywords: Belief, mental illness, paramedic students Introduction Mental illnesses, which make up about 14% of all illnesses in the world, afect more than 450 million individuals worldwide [1]. The World Health Organization defnes stigmatization as "a sign of shame, discredit and disapproval that results in the rejection, discrimination and exclusion of the individual from many areas of society" [2]. Stigmatization of mental illnesses is a worldwide condition, and its negative impact on individuals with mental disorders has survived to the present day [3]. Stigmatization of the people with mental illnesses may afect negatively searching for appropriate and efcient support [4], compliance to treatment, having treatment within the society [5], and the adaptation of the mental patients to society in order to cope with the illness [6,7]. The university students come from diferent cultural structures of society and they are afected by the beliefs of the society they have raised in toward the mental illnesses [8,9]. For this reason, determining the beliefs of the paramedic students towards mental illnesses and the factors afecting these beliefs contributes to the preparation of the training programs for reducing the negative beliefs against mental illnesses. The attitudes toward mental patients and illnesses have brought the "stigma" concept. Stigma is defned as a situation threatening the reputation of an individual or a group and causing the feeling of embarrassment for them and a disgrace indicating that something is not accepted to be normal [10]. Sartorius states that healthcare professionals have an important role in stigmatization of the individuals with mental illnesses [11]. In a study conducted with the nursing school students, it was found that nursing students impose restriction in close relationships with mental patients (having a heart-to-heart talk, sharing the same room, traveling together for a long time, marrying etc,) [10]. There are a limited number of studies on the knowledge, attitude and behavior of healthcare professionals toward mental patients Medicine Science International Medical Journal *Corresponding Author: Kubra Kayaoglu, Kovancılar Vocational School, Department of Medical Services and Techniques, PK 23850 Kovancılar, Elazig, Turkey. E-mail: kkayaoglu@frat.edu.tr