Introduction: Mental disorders are considered as a major contributor to the global burden of disease worldwide. Despite much advancement in health care technology , people are still having many misconceptions about occurrence and treatment of mental disorders. Materials and Methods: A community based cross sectional survey was conducted in a rural and urban community of district Amritsar, Punjab to assess attitude of rural and urban community people towards mental illness. Total of 200 (100 each) participants were enrolled by using convenient sampling method. A self developed attitude scale was used to assess attitude of community people towards mental illness. Result: Study findings showed that majority of urban and  rural (90%, 86%) community people have fair attitude and only 7% urban people showed positive attitude towards mental illness. There was no significant association found between socio-demographic variables of rural and urban community people with attitude. Conclusion: Rural and urban community people showed varied attitude towards mental illness. Study findings recommended that strong emphasis should be given to information, education and communication (IEC) to improve knowledge of community people to change their attitude towards mental illness. Positive attitude will also enforce the better utilization of health care services at community level.  

Keywords: Attitude; Mental illness; Rural and urban community