Revisiting the ATP 30: the Factor Structure of a Scale Measuring Medical Students’ Attitudes Towards Psychiatry

The Importance of Exploring Attitudes Toward Psychiatry, Past, and Present

“…Although students had a positive attitude toward most of the statements in the APS, the number seriously considering psychiatry as a career choice fell from 15.8 to 1.4% during the period of study. Reflective of the importance of image noted by Baminiwatta et al [4], several related items changed in a concerning manner. For example, there was a statistically significant increase in agreement to the statements "If a student expresses interest in psychiatry, he or she risks being associated with a group of other would-be-psychiatrists who are often seen by others as odd, peculiar and neurotic" and "Psychiatrists are too often apologetic when teaching psychiatry" and a significant decrease in agreement with both "Most psychiatrists are clear, logical thinkers" and "Psychiatry has a high status among other disciplines.…”

“…For example, in the USA, approximately half of the 8 million visits for depression yearly occur in primary care clinics, and in the UK, 90% of mental health care takes place solely in this setting [2]. Given the emigration of specialists from developing to developed countries, this relative shortage of specialists is likely even more of a concern in other areas of the world [3,4]. Gauging medical student attitudes toward psychiatry provides not only a glimpse of how future physicians feel about patients with psychiatric disease but also information about their perceptions of psychiatrists and the field in general.…”

“…Four articles in the December 2021 issue of Academic Psychiatry [3,4,7,8] add to the existing literature on medical student attitudes toward psychiatry worldwide. "Revisiting the ATP 30: The Factor Structure of a Scale Measuring Medical Students' Attitudes Towards Psychiatry" [4] reexamines the ATP-30 [5], which was originally found to have no meaningful subscales.…”

“…Four articles in the December 2021 issue of Academic Psychiatry [3,4,7,8] add to the existing literature on medical student attitudes toward psychiatry worldwide. "Revisiting the ATP 30: The Factor Structure of a Scale Measuring Medical Students' Attitudes Towards Psychiatry" [4] reexamines the ATP-30 [5], which was originally found to have no meaningful subscales. Baminiwatta et al [4] analyze secondary data from a survey of over 700 medical students across nine schools in Sri Lanka and derive six subscales from the original domains: the image of psychiatrists, psychiatric patients and mental illness, the efficacy of treatment, psychiatric teaching, career choice, and psychiatry as an evidenced-based discipline.…”

“…"Revisiting the ATP 30: The Factor Structure of a Scale Measuring Medical Students' Attitudes Towards Psychiatry" [4] reexamines the ATP-30 [5], which was originally found to have no meaningful subscales. Baminiwatta et al [4] analyze secondary data from a survey of over 700 medical students across nine schools in Sri Lanka and derive six subscales from the original domains: the image of psychiatrists, psychiatric patients and mental illness, the efficacy of treatment, psychiatric teaching, career choice, and psychiatry as an evidenced-based discipline. The authors note the similarity to an analysis of the factor structure of the APS, which provides additional evidence that attitudes toward psychiatry are multidimensional in nature [9].…”