The Effect of Psychiatric Clerkship on Fifth Year Medical Students’ Attitudes Toward Psychiatry and Their Intention to Pursue Psychiatry as a Career (original) (raw)
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Journal of the Faculty of Medicine-Baghdad
Background: Psychiatry is an important branch of medicine and has been an integral part of the academic curriculum in Baghdad College of Medicine since its establishment. Medical students have a different attitude towards it as a medical profession like other specialties of medicine and as future medical career. Objectives: This study aims to explore the attitudes of medical students towards psychiatry in general and as a future career after their course of clerkship in the Department of Psychiatry in Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Patients and Methods: During the year 2016, 158 male and female students of fifth and sixth years participated in a brief five-question survey derived from the international questionnaire-Attitude towards Mental Illness (AMI) assessing their perspectives toward importance of psychiatry as medical discipline to study and as their future career choice. Results: The female to male ratio was 2:1. Of all the respondents, 86.6% indicated the clinical significance of psychiatry as a profession. Only 23% said that they would choose psychiatry as their future career. Nearly half of them attributed improvement of their attitudes to the positive effect of tutoring. Generally, there were no prominent gender differences in the responses Conclusion: The vast majority of the students had a positive attitude towards psychiatry in general yet it wasn't preferred as their future career. It is thought that education and training of psychiatry may ameliorate the negative attitude towards the clinical importance but it may not affect their career aspiration.
Journal of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences
BACKGROUND Globally, there is a negative attitude toward psychiatry among medical students. So there is a need to assess the impact of psychiatry training and their intention to pursue psychiatry as a career among medical students. Aims and objectives-The primary aim of the study is to compare the attitude toward psychiatry among final year medical students and interns of a tertiary care hospital. The secondary aim is to assess preferred future career choice after graduation. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a cross-sectional study conducted in a tertiary care hospital of North Kerala. Participants consisted of two groups, one group was of final year medical students who were yet to start the clinical internship and other group was of interns, who had completed their compulsory 2 weeks clinical internship in psychiatry. Participants were individually administered a questionnaire which included sociodemographic data, preference for future career choice and Attitude Towards Psychiatry (Balon et al.'s ATP-29) questionnaire. Data analysis (Standard descriptive statistics, Chi-square test) was done using SPSS version 20. RESULTS A total of 95 participants formed the study sample, out of which final year medical students and interns were 42 and 53, respectively. There was a positive attitude towards psychiatry by interns in comparison to final year medical students in most of the areas. Overall, in both groups, positive attitude towards psychiatry was reflected. Regarding the choice of career, 20% chose Internal medicine followed by 18.9% choosing Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Only 1.1% preferred psychiatry and 17.9% of them were yet to decide regarding their career choice. CONCLUSION Findings suggest that both groups do not have a negative attitude towards psychiatry in general and they have a good perception of psychiatry, though they didn't show a significant change in their intention to pursue psychiatry as a prospective career.
Academic Psychiatry, 2014
Objective The psychiatry clerkship forms part of the core curriculum of medical schools worldwide and provides psychiatric educators with an ideal opportunity to positively influence students. The aim of this paper is to systematically review literature on the impact of the psychiatry clerkship to determine the effect on attitudes towards psychiatry and to psychiatry as a career. Method A systematic review was undertaken. The following key search words were used to search a number of electronic databases: medical student/s, attitude/s, psychiatry and clerkship. Studies published in the English language from 1990 to the present were included. Studies were included if they were based on a pre-/post-design, i.e. the same students must have participated in the study both before and after the clerkship. Results Twenty-six studies from 19 countries were identified for the review. Sixteen studies reported an overall improvement in attitudes towards psychiatry post-clerkship, and ten found no change in attitudes. In terms of career choice, nine studies reported an increase in the number of students interested in psychiatry as a career post-clerkship, nine found no impact on career choice and, in eight studies, it was not assessed. A number of positive and negative factors regarding the clerkship were identified. Conclusion Overall, the psychiatry clerkship has a positive impact on students' attitudes towards psychiatry, but does not improve interest in psychiatry as a career option. For those students particularly interested in psychiatry, the challenge is to maintain their enthusiasm post-clerkship. Charismatic teachers, mentorship and stigma reduction may be effective strategies. Future research needs to more clearly identify specific components of the clerkship that are viewed favorably by students.
Iranian medical students' perception of psychiatry: before and after a psychiatry clerkship
Iranian journal of psychiatry, 2013
We aimed to compare the medical students' attitude towards psychiatry before and after psychiatry clerkship, and to examine the association of choosing psychiatry as a future career with some personal characteristics. In a self-controlled, quasi-experimental study, all of the medical students entering the psychiatry clerkship in three major medical schools of Iran located in Tehran (Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, and Iran University of Medical Sciences) were asked to participate anonymously in the study on the first and the last 3-days of their psychiatry clerkship. From 346 invited 4th-5th year medical students, 225 (65%) completed anonymous self-report questionnaires before and after a 4-week psychiatry clerkship. Positive response to choose psychiatry as a career was seen in 13.3% and 18.3% before and after psychiatry rotation, respectively. However, the difference was not statistically significant; about one-quarter of the students were turned on to psychiatry and 25% were discour...
Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health, 2021
BACKGROUND: Stigma and negative perceptions regarding psychiatric illness, psychiatric patients and the speciality as a whole is a common phenomenon across the globe. This is more prevalent in countries like India, with deeply ingrained cultural beliefs about psychiatric illness. Medical students are not an exception for this phenomenon. Psychiatry training plays a huge role in changing these negative perceptions. But the studies on the subject are scarce from India. AIM: This study is aimed at analysing medical students' perceptions of psychiatry before and after their clinical posting and theory lecture classes. METHODS: The current study was an analytical cross sectional study, involving two study groups (Interns and UG medical students). Attitude towards psychiatry-30 (ATP-30) scale, a valid reliable scale was used to measure the attitude of medical students towards psychiatry in different domains such as perception of psychiatry as a discipline, perception about psychiatric treatments, perception of psychiatrists as role models, perception of psychiatry as a career. RESULTS: As per the perceptions regarding psychiatry are concerned, no clear pattern could be identified across the two study groups. About 80% of the interns had felt that psychiatric patients are as human as other people, whereas this proportion was about 72.5% in UG students. Higher proportion of interns (about 60%) felt that it is interesting to work with psychiatric patients than other patients, as compared to 47% in UG students. Higher proportion of interns has expressed strong agreement with positive aspects of psychiatric training. The proportion of interns expressing positive agreement with psychiatric treatment as valuable, most important part of their medical curriculum was about 43.3% and 56.7%, whereas this proportion was only 22.5% and 40% among UG students. Higher proportion of UG students was willing to be psychiatrist (about 30%) than Interns (about 10%). CONCLUSION: Psychiatry training had enhanced the positive perception about psychiatry
MEDICAL STUDENTS ATTITUDE TOWARD PSYCHIATRY IN UMM AL-QURA UNIVERSITY: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY
Background: Several studies worldwide reported negative attitude toward psychiatry from medical students and interns. Despite the increasing demand for psychiatry and mental health services, psychiatrists\' numbers are still low, and the field of psychiatry is still attracting a lower number of medical students. Objective: This study aims to measure the attitude of medical students and interns toward psychiatry in Umm Al-Qura University medical college, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Method: A Cross-sectional study. A web-based Attitude Toward Psychiatry (ATP-30) questionnaire was distributed among randomly chosen interns and 6th-year medical students, who had completed their psychiatry course and rotation, and to fourth and 5th-year medical students, who did not have any previous exposure to psychiatry. Results: A total of 335 participants completed the survey, of which 168 were males, and 167 were females. Among them, only 53 are considering psychiatry as a career, while 193 did not, and 89 are not sure. The participants showed an overall positive attitude with the mean scoring of 98.09 ±12.22 on the ATP-30 questionnaire, with male participants showing more positive attitude (99.65±11.48) than female participants (96.44±12.79). The most neutral responses were about how facts in psychiatry are just vague speculations, how their undergraduate training in psychiatry was valuable, and that psychiatry cannot be taughteffectively because it is so amorphous. Negative attitude was observed in the areas concerning the choice of psychiatry as a future career and viewing psychiatric hospitals as little more than prisons. Positive attitude toward areas on the validity of psychotherapy, viewing psychiatry as a respected branch of medicine, attention toward mental illness, and the humanity of the mentally ill. Significant differences based on gender were observed in the areas measuring attitude toward psychiatric patients, psychiatric illness, psychiatry, and psychiatrists. The prior exposure to psychiatry teaching and practice did not seem to affect the attitude. Conclusions: Interns and students overall showed neutral to positive ATP. Proper evaluation and subsequent modification to the current medical curriculum, with more clinical exposure and engagement with psychiatrists working in the field, may be needed to improve the attitude of interns and students toward psychiatry and mental illness.