Attitudes of ambulance service staff towards people with mental illness: A cross-sectional survey in the Verona province, Italy

Healthcare professionals can be sources of stigma for people with mental illness. Ambulance personnel are often the first healthcare providers that people with mental illness encounter during physical and mental health crises and their attitudes may be influenced by misconceptions and stereotyping views. This study aimed to assess the attitudes of ambulance personnel toward people with mental illness using the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC) and to evaluate its psychometric properties. The study involved 510 ambulance staff members from a non-profit organization. The original factor structure of the OMS-HC, comprising three subscales was confirmed. The internal consistency for the OMS-HC total score was good (α=0.75) and acceptable for the subscales (Social Distance α=0.66; Attitudes α=0.59; Disclosure/Help-Seeking α=0.61). One-third of respondents displayed stigmatizing attitudes on half of the OMS-HC items. Higher scores were associated with being male, having lower levels of education, and working as both rescuers and ambulance drivers and with feeling uncomfortable when dealing with patients with mental illness. Overall, stigmatizing attitudes towards individuals with mental illness are prevalent among ambulance staff. The Italian version of the OMS-HC for ambulance personnel demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties and is recommended for evaluating training programs targeting this population.