Attitudes towards psychiatry among undergraduate medical students

Abstract

Mental health is the most neglected and stigmatized branch of medical science in Bangladesh. Attitudes towards psychiatry are an important determination for selection of the subject as career by the undergraduate medical students. The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes of undergraduate medical students towards psychiatry and related factors. It was across sectional study conducted from May 2013 to September 2013 among 1 st and 5 th year medical students of Rajshahi Medical College, Rajshashi and Shaheed Shahrawardi Medical College, Dhaka. Results showed that only 2.6% of 5 th year medical students wanted to be specialized in psychiatry and none of 1 st year medical students wanted to be specialized in psychiatry. All of them (100% and 98.7%) agreed with the statement that psychiatric research has made good strides in advancing care of major mental disorder and majority students of both groups were (96% and 86.6% respectively) with the statement that psychiatry was a rapidly expanding frontier of medicine. Around two-third of the students (79.3% and 82.7% respectively) perceived psychiatric treatment as being helpful. Fifty nine (76.6%) of 5 th year students and forty one (55.7%) of 1 st year students did not agree that psychiatrists frequently abuse their legal power to hospitalize patients against their will. Positive opinions on attitudes of undergraduate medical students towards psychiatry became strengthen further following exposure to psychiatry lectures and clerkship in psychiatry ward. Bang J Psychiatry 2014,28(2):45-49

Impact of clinical posting in psychiatry on the attitudes towards psychiatry and mental illness in undergraduate medical students

“…However, the attitude on the negative domain of the ATP-30 scale improved but was not statistically significant (p=0.058). Our findings were consistent with previous studies 16–24. The result could be resulted from the duration of posting being 15 days.…”

“…The change in attitude towards psychiatry and mental illness as per MICA scale was also statistically significant in our study. This is in accordance with several previous studies16 and discordant with some 27…”

“…The views of students towards the positive aspects of psychiatry as a subject improved further following the term as statistically significant changes were noted in such domains on both the ATP-30 and MICA questionnaires on similarly worded or meant questions like ‘Psychiatry is a respected branch of medicine’, ‘with the form of therapy now available, most psychiatric patients improve’, ‘ In recent years psychiatric treatment has become quite effective’, ‘ Psychiatric patients are often more interesting to work with than others’ and ‘ It is quiet easy for me to accept the efficacy of Psychotherapy’. The students even disagreed more on questions like ‘Psychiatry is so unscientific that even psychiatrists can’t agree as to what its basic applied sciences are.’ These findings were consistent across previous studies in similar items 16 28. Few studies had contradictory results 30…”

“…We found significant improvement in students’ thinking to be a psychiatrist in future (p=0.0002) post-term. This was also found in other previous studies,16 17 23 24 27–29 with few exceptions 18 22. There was an almost 23% surge in students agreeing to think about being a psychiatrist in the future, which is an asset that needs to be shaped further to reap dividends in the long run.…”

“…Few studies reported no change in attitude among students in a 15-day term 24. However, most studies agreed that more time spent in the psychiatry clinical term did help in producing a desired outcome 16 18 20–25. Thus, we may concur that more time allotted to psychiatry clinical postings would indeed help produce doctors with a positive attitude towards the subject and patients.…”