Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Clayfields House, Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2023 Sep 28;18(9):e0292271. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292271. eCollection 2023.
Knowledge and attitudes of professionals both pose a potential barrier to diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. However, knowledge and attitudes about conduct disorder in professionals working with young people are poorly understood. Little is known about the impact of occupation, direct and indirect (training and education) experience, or the interrelationship between knowledge and attitudes.
We conducted an online survey of 58 participants, including Psychology Staff, Teaching Staff, Care Staff, and Other Non-Clinical Staff. A questionnaire comprising three subscales (causes, treatments, and characteristics) measured knowledge. A thermometer scale measured global attitudes. Open-ended response measures were used to measure four attitude components: stereotypic beliefs (about characteristics), symbolic beliefs (about the holder's traditions), affect, and past behaviour. Primary analysis explored the impact of occupation, direct experience, and indirect experience on outcome measures. A secondary exploratory analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between knowledge and attitudes.
Psychology Staff had significantly more favourable global attitudes (F = 0.49, p = 0.01) and symbolic beliefs (F = 0.57, p = 0.02) towards those with conduct disorder than Teaching Staff; there were no other significant group differences in attitudes. Psychology staff had more knowledge about conduct disorder than other groups, though the differences were not significant. Direct and indirect experience were associated with greater knowledge (direct: d = 0.97, p = 0.002; indirect d = 0.86, p = 0.004) and favourable global attitudes (direct: d = 1.12, p < 0.001; indirect: d = 0.68, p = 0.02). Secondary exploratory analyses revealed significant positive correlations between: all knowledge variables with global attitudes; total knowledge with past behaviour; and affect and knowledge of causes with past behaviour.
Psychology-based staff may have more favourable attitudes towards children with conduct disorder than teachers, primarily due to direct and indirect experience with the disorder. Our sample may have been too small to detect overall or within-group effects of knowledge or attitudes, however exploratory analyses showing a positive correlation between knowledge and attitudes suggest education may be critical in supporting teachers and other groups in their approaches to this challenging group of young people.
专业人员的知识和态度都可能成为诊断和治疗精神障碍的潜在障碍。然而，对于从事青少年工作的专业人员在品行障碍方面的知识和态度知之甚少。职业、直接和间接（培训和教育）经验的影响，或知识和态度之间的相互关系知之甚少。
我们对 58 名参与者进行了在线调查，包括心理学工作人员、教学人员、护理人员和其他非临床人员。一份包含三个分量表（病因、治疗和特征）的问卷衡量了知识。温度计量表衡量了整体态度。使用开放式回答措施来衡量四个态度成分：刻板信念（关于特征）、象征性信念（关于持有者的传统）、情感和过去的行为。主要分析探讨了职业、直接经验和间接经验对结果测量的影响。进行了二次探索性分析，以探讨知识和态度之间的关系。
与教学人员相比，心理学工作人员对品行障碍患者的整体态度（F = 0.49，p = 0.01）和象征性信念（F = 0.57，p = 0.02）更为有利；在态度方面没有其他显著的组间差异。心理学工作人员对品行障碍的了解多于其他群体，尽管差异不显著。直接和间接经验与更多的知识有关（直接经验：d = 0.97，p = 0.002；间接经验：d = 0.86，p = 0.004）和有利的整体态度（直接经验：d = 1.12，p < 0.001；间接经验：d = 0.68，p = 0.02）。二次探索性分析显示，所有知识变量与整体态度之间，以及总知识与过去行为之间，以及情感和原因知识与过去行为之间存在显著的正相关关系。
与教师相比，以心理学为基础的工作人员可能对患有品行障碍的儿童有更有利的态度，这主要是由于他们直接和间接接触该疾病。我们的样本可能太小，无法检测知识或态度的总体或组内效应，但是探索性分析显示知识和态度之间存在正相关关系，这表明教育可能对于支持教师和其他群体在处理这群年轻挑战群体的方法方面至关重要。
