Assessing the impact of multi-disciplinary teaching sessions on medical students attitudes to mental illness and to psychiatry as a career

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Objectives: The aim of this research was to assess the impact of multi-disciplinary teaching sessions on medical students attitudes to mental illness and to psychiatry as a career. Methods: An undergraduate module entitled "psychiatry and society" was developed and taught to students by a multi-disciplinary group. This included academics from other disciplines such as; economics, history, philosophy, sociology and non-academics such as representatives of refugees/asylum seekers, the travelling community, the news media and other social stakeholders. Behavioural learning objectives were devised for this lecture series entitled "psychiatry and society" . At the beginning and at the end of the lecture series measures of attitudes to mental illness and stigma were administered to the student group in attendance at the lectures. These include; the Attitudes to Mental Illness Questionnaire (Luty et al 2006), the Social Distance Scale (Bogardus 1926) and the attitudes to psychiatry as a career (Cutler et al 2006). The student group was surveyed at the beginning (March) and end (October) of the lecture series. Results: In both the March and October groups the level of acceptance was high overall. There is an increase in acceptance at all levels in the later group, with near unanimous acceptance at the more distant levels. In the March group there was a higher rate of acceptance for personal friends and neighbours than for co-workers in the same occupation. In the October group there was a higher level of acceptance for close personal friends than for neighbours or co-workers. This suggests that the social distance theory may not apply to mental illness. These results indicate that the most marked change in attitudes was in relation to schizophrenia. There was a shift away from neutral positions which could indicate a greater degree of knowledge. The trend was towards more accepting attitudes, with the exception of the effect on the individual's career. However this could be seen as reflecting a greater appreciation of the reality of discrimination that patients with Schizophrenia face after the lecture series, rather than stigmatising attitudes amongst the student group towards people with Schizophrenia.In relation to career interest in Psychiatry, the levels of agreement that the earning potential of psychiatrists was poor and that the quality of life of psychiatrists was low is high in both groups. These figures actually increased between March and October. So did those agreeing/strongly agreeing with the statement that working with psychiatric patients was unrewarding and that family and friends hold psychiatrists in low esteem. When it comes to the factors associated with a positive attitude to psychiatry as a career, they are unsurprisingly a mirror image of those associated with a negative attitude. Conclusion: Students responses to the statements indicating why they would not be interested in psychiatry as a career showed some change between the groups. The move is towards a slightly more positive view of how interesting the intellectual content of Psychiatry as a discipline is. Agreement with the perception that psychiatry is of low status amongst medical professionals changed with students moving to a more neutral position.