Background: Electro Convulsive Therapy is practiced all over the globe to treat severe psychiatric disorders. Awareness regarding ECT among patients’ relatives could have a significant impact on the outcome of the treatment and also assist in alleviating the misconceptions prevailed in society related to it. Objectives: This study was carried out to assess the level of knowledge and attitude towards Electro Convulsive Therapy among care givers of patient with mental illness. Material and method: A descriptive study designs was adopted in order to assess the knowledge and attitude of caregivers of mental illness toward ECT in selected hospital in Mangaluru.. The study was conducted from 24/4/2016 to 5/5/2016 by administering structured knowledge questionnaire and modified attitude scale to 100 caregivers of patients with mental illness. The data collected from the sample was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Study findings revealed that majority of caregivers (63%) had poor knowledge, 34% had average knowledge and merely 3% had good knowledge toward ECT. Majority of caregivers (88%) had unfavourable attitude and 12% had favourable attitude toward ECT. The study results also revealed that knowledge and attitude scores were dependents of selected demographic variables. Conclusion: The finding of the study revealed that the majority of the caregivers had poor knowledge and unfavourable attitude toward ECT. There were no significant association between knowledge and attitude score with selected demographic variables like age, education, occupation, income, religion, relationship with patient and family history of mental illness
