a pilot study evaluating the stigma and public perception about the causes of depression and schizophrenia

background: to evaluate public perceptions towards the causes of depression and schizophrenia and identifications of fac­tors resulting stigma towards mental ill. method: a cross-sectional study was conducted among the inhabitants of pulau-pinang, malaysia in march, 2009. a 24-item questionnaire was used to obtain respondent views. a non-probability (i.e convenient sampling method) was used to ap­proach the potential respondents. data analysis was conducted using spss version 13 ®, non-parametric sta­tistics (chi-square) was applied to determine the association.  alpha value less than 0.05 were considered significant. results: one hundred respondents showed their willingness to participate in the study; overall response of the study was 40.0%. majority 69% of the respondents were malays, followed by chinese and indians. public re-cognition toward depres­sion was higher than schizophrenia. lack of social support ( x 2 = 4.832, p = 0.049), chemical imbalance in brian ( x 2 =6.132, p = 0.013*) and believes in supernatural factors ( x 2 = 6.700, p = 0.050) were the commonly shared reasons for the mental dis­or­ders. evaluation in terms of stigma revealed that majority 61 (55.0%). individuals with mental disorders were not friendly ( x 2 = 1.008, p = 0.050). furthermore, one third of the population believe that they are moody, danger­ous and unpredict­able, it is better to avoid them. conclusion: overall findings revealed that malaysians believe in supernatural reasons for the prevalence of mental disor­ders. similarly the level of stigma towards mentally ill was higher among the respondents.