Penelope, MartinAwa, Fritz2023-08-082024-11-072023-08-082024-11-072023https://hdl.handle.net/10566/19003Magister Curationis - MCurBackground: Student nurses enter nursing education and training programmes with beliefs and attitudes toward mental illness which are generally negative. These negative attitudes are not different from that of the public. These beliefs and attitudes may impede nursing care and social acceptance of mental health care users, their families, colleagues and friends. Aim: To investigate the attitudes of university student nurses towards mental illness. Method: A quantitative descriptive approach, using stratified random sampling was used to select 289 undergraduate nursing students registered at a higher education institution in the Western Cape. The Attitudes of Severe Mental Illness Scale (ASMI), which is a 30 item, Likert type, structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from the respondents yielding a response rate of 98% (n= 284). The data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.enAttitudesCopingMental illnessOptimismStereotypingUniversity of the Western Cape