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.

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