THE NORWEGIAN MENTAL-HEALTH CAMPAIGN IN 1992 .2. CHANGES IN KNOWLEDGEAND ATTITUDES

A one-Sunday fund-raising TV show in the autumn of 1992 was broadcast by the Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation, one of two TV channels cove ring the whole country. The 6 h TV show consisted of information on me ntal health problems and prevention interspersed with entertainment an d reporting fund-raising results. Newspapers, radio and TV had covered the forthcoming TV show extensively, The campaign was evaluated as a nationwide mass-media-based mental health campaign through a stratifie d random sample of 574 persons. The proportion of the population aware of the fact that suicide takes more lives than traffic accidents incr eased from 28.2 to 49.3% in men (P<0.001) and from 21.3 to 46.0% in wo men (P<0.001). Both sexes showed a significant increase in the proport ion having an open attitude towards mental illness in the family. A hi gher proportion stated they would recommend people with a minor mental health problem to consult a general practitioner after the campaign t han before [from 18.9 to 31.3% in men (P<0.001) and from 21.8 to 34.1% in women (P<0.001)]. The Norwegian Mental Health Campaign seems to ha ve succeeded in changing knowledge about and attitudes towards mental health problems in the general Norwegian population.