Pharmacy student attitudes to mental illness and the provision of mental health care: a repeated cross-sectional survey

Abstract

BackgroundAttitudes to mental illness are an important factor in the willingness of professionals to engage in mental health care. AimWe sought to understand the attitudes of undergraduate pharmacy students in Ireland to severe mental illness and the provision of medicines optimisation services. Further, we aimed to understand if these attitudes changed through the course of the students' undergraduate training. MethodsA survey instrument was compiled using existing published research. The survey was distributed to students in their rst, third and MPharm years annually between 2014 and 2019. ResultsThe overall response rate to the survey was 25%. Respondents were mostly female (77.5%) and knew someone experiencing mental illness (83.2%). Notwithstanding generally positive attitudes, a sizeable proportion of students felt people with severe depression and schizophrenia were hard to talk to (29.2% vs 25.3%). Less than half of MPharm students expressed con dence and competence in caring for people with more severe mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and 29% of students would feel awkward asking someone about their antipsychotic medication. Almost two thirds (63.8%) expressed an interest in a career in mental health. ConclusionIrish pharmacy students have generally positive attitudes towards people with severe mental illness and provision of medicines optimisation services. Practical di culties in conducting longitudinal research are challenging to overcome with low response rates to surveys limiting the generalisability of results. It is nonetheless encouraging that a signi cant proportion of our future pharmacists consider mental health care to be a potentially rewarding career option. Impact Of Findings On Practice1. Attitudes to mental illness were generally positive among trainee pharmacists. This may re ect the response rate, or the fact that ve out of every six respondents knew someone with a mental illness. Nonetheless, positive attitudes are linked with willingness to engage in mental health care.2. Almost two thirds of students surveyed expressed an interest in a career mental health pharmacy.3. Educational interventions such as specialist mental health pharmacist-facilitated learning with direct patient involvement may have a role in improving attitudes to mental illness and the role of the pharmacist therein.