Vol. 3, Issue 10, Part B (2017)

Abstract
Mental illness is probably the most misunderstood and abused illness. Half of individual with serious mental illness to remain untreated at any given time. It is known that treating seriously mentally ill people decreases violent behaviour. Therefore the most effective way to decrease stigma is to make sure the patient receive adequate treatment. In this paper we integrate research specific to mental illness stigma with more general body of research on stereotype and prejudice to provide a brief overview of issues in the area (Poonjeri). To assess and associate the stigma and misconception regarding the mental illness among the community members. Descriptive research design is selected for Community area Poonjeri [Village], Kanchipuram (Dist), who are aged 20 to 60yrs of age. With 30 samples through Non randomized convenient sampling technique and assessed by using structured questionnaire. In data analysis Frequency, percentage and graph for demography characteristics frequency and percentage for stigma and misconception regarding mental illness. shows that maximum adults were in the age group of 20-30 yrs (50%), Majority of adult sex is female (77%). from the results that the highest mean score noticed in the aspect of stigma and misconception is 8.6 at p value< 0.05 level of significance.