Kunnskap og åpenhet om psykisk helse og psykiske lidelser

12causes, consequences and solutions. The final segment concerns issuesrelated to children and adolescents.An initial review of the response distributions indicates divisions andconcurrence. For instance, people do not believe a person will havefailed in life simply because they have suffered from mental problems.There is also agreement that it is impossible to tell whether somebodyis suffering from mental problems simply by looking at them. Nor domost people believe there is any connection between psychiatricdisorders and low will power or resolve.The majority feel that people have the ability to improve their ownmental health. A minority believe the disposition for mental healthproblems is innate. The findings show that people are very preparedindeed to do something with their own situation should the need arise.The detailed analysis of attitudes to psychiatric disorders (Chapter 7and appendix 2) uncovered measurement errors connected with thetypes of questions that were used (and which have also been used inearlier studies on public attitudes to mental health). This means thatsome of the negative opinions were actually less negative thanassumed (cf. Chapter 6). We will address this problem in the next faseof the project. The results from both surveys will then be compared,thus providing important information on possible changes in publicattitudes registered at the two points of time.NIBR-rapport 2003:5