The prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among patients attending primary care clinics is high and their attitudes towards psychiatry are often negative. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity and attitudes towards mental illness in relation to socio-demographic factors among primary care patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 245 patients attending the primary care clinic of Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia at Bandar Tasik Selatan. A two-stage case identification process was used to detect psychiatric morbidity. The Malay translation of General Health Questionnaire-30 (GHQ-30) was used for screening and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) was used to generate Axis-1 diagnosis. The Attitudes Towards Mental Illness Questionnaire was used to assess their attitudes towards mental illness. 8.2% of patients were found to have psychiatric morbidity, and they were significantly associated with the younger age group (p<0.05). Nevertheless, there was no significant association between psychiatric morbidity and sex, race, marital status, educational level, and social class of patients. The attitudes towards mental illness were significantly associated with age, race, marital status, educational level, social class and the presence of family history of psychiatry illness (p<0.05). There was no significant association between attitudes towards mental illness and patients'sex. Primary care doctors need to be equipped with psychiatry knowledge in order not to miss patients with psychiatry morbidity. Patients with psychiatry morbidity significantly believed in supernatural causes of mental illness compared with those without psychiatric morbidity. Keywords: Primary care, psychiatric morbidity, attitude towards psychiatry