Attitudes toward people with mental illness among medical students

Abstract

Background:Globally, people with mental illness frequently encounter stigma, prejudice, and discrimination by public and health care professionals. Research related to medical students’ attitudes toward people with mental illness is limited from India.Aim:The aim was to assess and compare the attitudes toward people with mental illness among medical students’.Materials and Methods:A cross-sectional descriptive study design was carried out among medical students, who were exposed (n = 115) and not exposed (n = 61) to psychiatry training using self-reporting questionnaire.Results:Our findings showed improvement in students’ attitudes after exposure to psychiatry in benevolent (t = 2.510, P < 0.013) and stigmatization (t = 2.656, P < 0.009) domains. Further, gender, residence, and contact with mental illness were the factors that found to be influencing students’ attitudes toward mental illness.Conclusion:The findings of the present study suggest that psychiatric education proved to be effective in changing the attitudes of medical students toward mental illness to a certain extent. However, there is an urgent need to review the current curriculum to prepare undergraduate medical students to provide holistic care to the people with mental health problems.

Emotional Empathy, Social Distance and Attitude of Police Officers towards People with Mental Illness

“…Invariably, the public are often misinformed about mental illness. These misunderstandings of the public about mental illness tend to lead to stigmatisation of people with mental illness (Poreddi, Thimmaiah, & Math, 2015). Stigma is stereotypic, mark of shame and disapproval which results in an individual being rejected and excluded from participating in a number of different areas of society (Yap, Mackinnon, Reavley, & Jorm, 2014).…”

“…Attitude towards people with mental illness is studied in many regions of the world such as Chicago (Watson, Corrigan, & Ottati, 2004); China (Sun, Fan, Nie, Zhang, Huang, He, & Rosenheck, 2014); Hong Kong (China) (Todor, 2013); India (Poreddi, Thimmaiah, & Math, 2015); Israel (Kimhi, Barak, Gutman, Melamed, Zohar, & Barak, 1998); Saudi Arabia (Amira, 2016 (Igbinomwanhia, James, & Omoaregba, 2013).…”

“…);Poreddi, Thimmaiah, & Math, 2015; secondary school students(Adeosun, Fatiregun, & Suraju Adeyemo, 2017;Dogra, Omigbodun, Adedokun, Bella, Ronzoni, & Adesokan, 2012); intensive care nurses(Gosselin, Bourgault, & Lavoie, 2016);…”

Stigmatisation toward the mentally ill in high school students

“…Posebno su važna znanstvena istraživanja i saznanja o utjecaju formalnog obrazovanja, okoline, obitelji, konfesijske opredjeljenosti, spola i drugih čimbenika na formiranje stavova o mentalnim bolestima (13)(14)(15)(16). Postoje i istraživanja o stigmatizaciji duševnih bolesnika od strane studenata (17,18), kao i o od srednjoškolaca, ali su znatno rjeđa (19,20).…”

The Nursing Student's Attitude Toward Psychiatric Patients: Is Changeable After Completing the Theoretical and Clinical Course.

“…Health care team are not immune to social prejudices and share the general public's attitude toward people with mental illness (6) . Unfortunately, this negative attitudes toward mentally ill is not in doubt even among nursing students that lead to a major effect on the quality and outcome of care for psychiatric ill patients (7) .…”