The Attitudes Scale for Mental Illness (ASMI)

ASMI is a valid and reliable self-report scale that measures respondents’ attitude to mental illness. It was developed by Ng & Chan (19) and tested in several studies worldwide (14, 20; 21; 22). ASMI was revised to reflect the socio-cultural aspects of Saudi society. It uses 25 items divided into six broad conceptual sub-scales:

·         Separatism or attitude to discrimination which identified by items, that emphasize the uniqueness of people with mental illness and keeping them away at safe distance.

·         Stereotyping which includes items that define people with mental illness in a certain behavioral pattern and mental ability.

·         Benevolence which includes items related to kindness towards people with a mental illness.

·         Pessimistic prediction which composed of items identified as the view that people with mental illness are unlikely to improve and how society treats them is not optimistic.

·         Stigmatization which includes that people perceives mental illness as shameful and it should be hidden.

·         Restrictiveness which composed of items that hold an uncertain view on the rights of people with mental illness (19).

·         Respondents are given the choice of 5 Likert scale responses (strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, unsure = 3, agree = 4, strongly agree = 5) based on their feelings towards each of the 25 items.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/medicine-and-health-care/american-research-journal-of-nursing/