The Impact of Psychiatry Round on The Attitude of Medical Students towards Psychiatry as a specialty and a career

Abstract

Background Psychiatry workplace shortage is a major problem seen in many countries around the world. This could be attributed to negative attitude of medical students towards psychiatry as a career for the past decades despite that medical students are exposed to psychiatry and behavioral science in most courses, starting in the preclinical years and progressing to clinical clerkships in the later years. Aim of the Work our study aims to assess the attitude of a sample of medical students towards psychiatry as a specialty and a career before the psychiatry round and the impact of psychiatry round on their attitude. Patients and Methods A sample of 50 participants was taken from both 4th and 5th grade of medical students. The socioeconomic status was assessed using socioeconomic status scale (SES), the general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) was used to assess the presence of minor psychiatric illness, the Attitude towards Psychiatry scale (ATP-30) was used to evaluate the attitude of students before psychiatric round and its impact afterwards. Results A total of 50 participants were enrolled, consisted of 24 males with 48% of sample and 26 females by 52% of total sample .There was a significant positive change in the attitude of participants toward psychiatry by a P value = 0.041, also it showed increasing in the percentage of the participants that will choose psychiatry as a career after the round than those before receiving the round. Conclusion The findings in our study highlight the positive effect of psychiatry round on the undergraduate attitude toward psychiatry as a post-graduation career, and that it could be considered as a strengthening point which can be used to compact stigma towards psychiatry as a career, as well as stigma towards mental illness and the mentally ill.