Occupational trust in Ex‐Mental Patients in a sample of Chinese secondary school students

The Chinese version of the Occupational Trust in Ex‐Mental Patients Scale (C‐OTEMP; Askenasy, 1974) was administered to 1,850 secondary school students, together with other instruments assessing (a) the students' attitudes toward the rehabilitation of ex‐mental patients and (b) the students' mental health knowledge. Although this scale was found to be reliable, factor analysis showed that two factors (Sophisticated Jobs and Unsophisticated Jobs) could be abstracted from this scale. These factors were found to be reliable and stable across sub samples. From the normative data, it was observed that whereas a significant proportion of the respondents were distrustful of ex‐mental patients in performing sophisticated jobs, the present sample displayed a lower sense of trust as compared to Western samples reported in the literature. The implications of the data for mental health education in the Chinese context are discussed.