Medical students’ attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities: A literature review

Abstract

The present paper provides a review of research on medical students' attitudes to people with intellectual disabilities. The attitudes of medical students warrant empirical attention because their future work may determine people with intellectual disabilities' access to healthcare and exposure to health inequalities. An electronic search of Embase, Ovid MEDLINE(R), PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science was completed to identify papers published up to August 2013. Twenty-four studies were identified, most of which evaluated the effects of pedagogical interventions on students' attitudes. Results suggested that medical students' attitudes to people with intellectual disabilities were responsive to interventions. However, the evidence is restricted due to research limitations, including poor measurement, self-selection bias, and the absence of control groups when evaluating interventions. Thus, there is a dearth of high-quality research on this topic, and past findings should be interpreted with caution. Future research directions are provided.

Mainstream health professionals' stigmatising attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities: a systematic review

“…For example, within psychiatry contact has demonstrated consistent results in counteracting stigmatising attitudes (Corrigan et al ) with even filmed social contact being effective (Clement et al ). Comparably, contact and collaboration with experts‐by‐experience with ID seemed to improve medical student's attitudes as well as health researchers' awareness of the needs of people with ID (Ryan & Scior ; Frankena et al ). Prerequisites for contact being effective in counteracting stigmatising attitudes have frequently been studied: the contact should be positive, non‐hierarchical and in a context focused on cooperation (Pettigrew ).…”

Attitudes towards people with intellectual disability in the UK and Libya: A cross-cultural comparison

“…Attitudes are influenced by a number of factors -physical, intellectual, social and emotional -and the experiences of the individual or the group. Positive attitudes can lead to decisions such as social and psychological acceptance of the person who has a disability (Tervo, Azuma, Palmer, & Redinius, 2002;Werner, Peretz, & Roth, 2015), improving programmes for people who have a disability -educational (Tindall, MacDonald, Carroll, & Moody, 2015); social (Kam & Wong, 2008;Keith, Bennetto, & Rogge, 2015); medical (Boyle et al, 2010;Ryan & Scior, 2014); and occupational (Tsang, Chan, & Chan, 2004;Uysal, Albayrak, Koçulu, Kan, & Aydin, 2014). By contrast, negative attitudes can lead to decisions such as rejection (Daruwalla & Darcy, 2005;Boer & Munde, 2014;Hassanein, 2015), segregation (Keller & Siegrist, 2010;Keith et al, 2015), and degradation (Panek & Jungers, 2008).…”

Attitudes Toward Autism Spectrum Disorders Among Students of Allied Health Professions

“…The knowledge of medical and allied health professions students' attitudes to people with intellectual disabilities deserves empirical attention because in the future, they might be in a position to determine these people's access to health care and exposure to health inequalities. Studies of perceptions of allied health professionals or medical students in other contexts include medical students' preconceived ideas about populations with mental retardation (Handler et al 1994), allied health profession students' perceptions of stroke rehabilitation (Insalaco et al 2007), and medical students' perceptions of effective team work (Byrne and Pettigrew 2010), rural and remote practice (McAuliffe and Barnett 2010), and intellectual disabilities (Ryan and Scior 2014). This list is not exhaustive.…”