First year medical undergraduate students’ attitude and perception towards psychiatry
Journal Title: MedPulse -International Medical Journal - Year 2016, Vol 3, Issue 5
Abstract
Introduction: The way students perceive the subject and display the attitude towards a subject determines the recruitment in a subject. Hence the study was plannedto assess the attitude and misconceptions towards psychiatry among the first year undergraduate medical students. Material and Methods: It was a questionnaire based cross sectional study. The first year under graduate medical students were handed over a semi-structured proforma enquiring them about the demographic details and concepts regarding the treatment about psychiatry. Further they were also asked to fill Attitude Towards Psychiatry (ATP) scale. Results and Discussion: Fifty three students agreed to participate. Mean age of participants was 18.13±1.16 with the male: female ratio of 0.89. Stress was considered the commonest cause of mental illnesses (58.49%). Only 7 respondents (13.20%) felt that they can consider psychiatry as the first choice of specialization. “Stigma associated with the subject”, was considered the most common reason for not opting psychiatry as a choice of specialization. The mean ATP score of the participants was 95.64±28.86. There was no statistically significant difference between the ATP scores of males and females (p=0.74) but the difference between the mean ATP scores of respondents from urban (107.76±31.19) and rural area (84.82±21.97) was found to be significant (p=0.003). Conclusion: A very small portion of participants wanted to consider psychiatry as a specialization of choice and the commonest reason for not choosing psychiatry as a choice of specialization was stigma associated with the subject. Stress was considered as the commonest cause of psychiatric illnesses and psychologists were the preferred treatment providers in case of psychiatric illnesses. The attitude of undergraduate medical students towards psychiatry was dismal with urban participants faring better as compared to the rural counterparts.
Authors and Affiliations
Reddy S M, Reddy P
Keywords
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