2024, Vol. 6, Issue 2, Part B

Background of the study: Mental hygiene is an essential part of police constables overall health. The police and others in occupations where they come into close contact with people experiencing with mental ill health, often have to manage difficult and complex situations. Health awareness is needed to equip them to recognize and assist when someone has a mental health issue or learning/intellectual disability. We undertook a systematic review of the effectiveness of health awareness program aimed at increasing knowledge, changing behavior and/or attitudes of the police constables with regard to mental ill health mental hygiene.

Aims: An evaluative study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the health awareness program on mental hygiene among police constables in selected police stations at Dharwad.

Methods: A Pre-experimental: One group pre-test post-test design was adopted for the study. In selected police stations in Dharwad. The study was conducted in a selected police stations Dharwad with a population of approximately n=60 police constables. The tools used for data collection was structured knowledge questionnaire and structure teaching program was developed. The data analysis was done by using both descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: In the present study with results revealed that reveals that among police constables on mental hygiene in pre-test mean 13.18, standard deviation 2.15 and post-test mean 20, standard deviation 1.73.and the obtained pair ‘t’ Value -42.473 and p value 0.0001 was significant. Hence, the stated hypothesis was accepted. The two tailed P value is less than 0.0001 by conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be extremely statically significant. The obtained chi- square value is significant for variable like working shift, the obtained chi-squares values for the variables like age in years, gender, education, Type of residence, Type of hobbies, Type of habit, religion, food, Monthly income, marital status, type of family, time spending with family, Current working place, Working hours / day, working place, Have you ever Visited a psychiatrist, Have you ever visited a psychologist, Have you ever suffered from mental illness, Do you have a history of mental illness in your family member. We’re not significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the findings partially support the research hypothesis H2 and the research hypothesis significant association between levels of mental hygiene and selected personal variables only except working shift.

Interpretation and Conclusion: Based on finding of the study, the following conclusions were drawn. Knowledge of police constables regarding mental hygiene during pretest was average and is improved as good after implementation health awareness program on mental hygiene. Post-test knowledge scores after administration of health awareness program showed significant improvement in the level of knowledge. There was association found between the one variable i.e., work shift pre-test knowledge scores of participants and socio demographic variables.