Seventy-two Saudi medical students were asked to complete a British questionnaire to measure their attitude to psychiatry before and after a psychiatric training course at King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh. Although the whole group appeared to show a favorable attitudinal change after the course, there was a significant difference in response between male and female students, showing the latter to have a more favorable attitude but less intention to specialize in psychiatry. Cultural factors strongly influenced the medical students' attitudes. FM Abdul-Rahim, A El-Assra, Saudi Medical Students' Attitudes to Psychiatry. 1989; 9(2): 190-194 Numerous studies have shown that medical students regard psychiatry as a low-prestige and low-status specialty.1-4 The inability to attract medical students to specialize in psychiatry has always been a serious challenge and threat to psychiatric recruitment.1,5 A more optimistic view, however, has indicated that exposure to clinical psychiatry brings about a favorable change of attitude toward psychiatry, as has been reported by a number of studies in Great Britain, 6,7 the United States, [8][9][10] Canada, 11 Australia, 12 and France.
13To our knowledge there have been no studies in Saudi Arabia on medical students' opinions of psychiatry and, furthermore, the effect of psychiatric training programs on attitudinal changes. Therefore, we conducted this study on a sample of Saudi medical students to compare the Saudi medical students' attitudes toward psychiatry before and after a psychiatric training program and to compare our results with those of Western studies.
MethodsThe British questionnaire of Wilkinson et al 6 was administered in its original English version to 72 fourth-year medical students undertaking psychiatric training (with instruction in English) at King Saud University, Division of Psychiatry, based at King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh. The questionnaire was given to the students on their first day of the psychiatric course and again at the end of their training, 15 weeks later. The students were assured about the confidentiality of their responses and that the whole issue had no bearing whatsoever on their examinations.The questionnaire has been fully described elsewhere 6 and used in the attitude assessment of students. In brief, it comprised items on general attitude measured on a five-point scale, 1 indicating a "very favorable" and 5 indicating a "very unfavorable" attitude to psychiatry. The 18 specific attitudes to psychiatry pertained to psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychiatric patients, and psychiatric treatments, and the responses were indicated on a Likert-type scale. Nine of the 18 items indicated positive views, and nine implied negative ones. The attitudes were measured on a four-point scale from 1, "strongly agree," to 4, "strongly disagree." Finally, the students were asked to indicate their first and second career choices and to respond on a five-point scale measuring the likelihood of their intention to specialize in psychiat...