The attitude of medical students to psychiatric patients and their disorders and the influence of psychiatric study placements in bringing about changes in attitude

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the general attitude of final year medical students towards psychiatric patients and psychiatric disorders and to reveal the influence of psychiatric study experience in changing the behavior and perception of students. The study comprised 172 final year medical students undergoing a period of placement at the Ondokuz Mayis University Medical School Department of Psychiatry who agreed to participate. They were asked to fill in the Opinions about Mental Illness Ideology Scale (OMI) the day before they commenced, on the last day of their placement and three months after completing it. The students reported the highest and lowest scores from the benevolence and social restrictiveness sub-dimensions of the OMI, respectively. The mean authoritarianism score was significantly higher in males than in females. The means of the OMI scores obtained over the three different periods were not statistically different. Medical school psychiatry departments need to develop new curricula to convey scientific information to students and play a pivotal role in developing, implementing and evaluating suitable programs leading to appropriate attitude development.