An assessment of voting knowledge and related decisions amongst hospitalized mental health care users in South Africa

Abstract

The Electoral Act (73 of 1998) states that persons may not be registered on the voter’s role if they have been “declared by the high court to be of unsound mind or mentally disordered” or if they are currently “detained under the Mental Health Care Act, 17 of 2002”. In this study I aimed to compare the voting knowledge and decision-making abilities of a study group (hospitalized MHCU) to that of a control group (hospitalized non-psychiatric patients). A modified CAT-V questionnaire was used and administered to 60 psychiatric inpatients and 30 non psychiatric inpatients. Socio-demographic and clinical variables such as age, gender, DSM 5 diagnosis, highest level of education and voting status were also reviewed. There was a significant association between group (MHCU vs control) and highest level of education (p=0.016). Although the median overall score for the control group (11; IQR 10-12) was significantly higher than that for the MHCU group (10; IQR 8-12) (p=0.043), when controlling for education level, there was no significant association between group (MHCU/control) and MCAT-V scores (p=0.011).MHCU and control groups displayed variable results on the MCAT-V questionnaire with regards voting knowledge and subsequent decisions. This was found to be dependent on educational attainment rather than membership group