[Authoritarianism and benevolence towards mental illness: study with beginning a nursing program].

Students beginning a nursing program tend to show negative attitudes towards mental health patientsm as does the general population. This study aimed at studying these students' authoritarianism and benevolence towards mental patients utilizing the opinion scale about the mental illness. The results indicated that the students showed authoritarianism towards mental patients with a tendency to protective behavior, which enabled the conclusion that these aspects must be considered in the elaboration of the course programs in this area in order to lead them to more therapeutic conducts in the future.