Attitude of Medical Students University of Baghdad toward Psychiatry:Clinical significance and as future career

Abstract

Background: Psychiatry is an important branch of medicine and has been an integral part of the academic curriculum in Baghdad College of Medicine since its establishment. Medical students have a different attitude towards it as a medical profession like other specialties of medicine and as future medical career.
 Objectives: This study aims to explore the attitudes of medical students towards psychiatry in general and as a future career after their course of clerkship in the Department of Psychiatry in Baghdad Teaching Hospital.
 Patients and Methods: During the year 2016, 158 male and female students of fifth and sixth years participated in a brief five-question survey derived from the international questionnaire-Attitude towards Mental Illness (AMI) assessing their perspectives toward importance of psychiatry as medical discipline to study and as their future career choice.
 Results: The female to male ratio was 2:1. Of all the respondents, 86.6% indicated the clinical significance of psychiatry as a profession. Only 23% said that they would choose psychiatry as their future career. Nearly half of them attributed improvement of their attitudes to the positive effect of tutoring. Generally, there were no prominent gender differences in the responses 
 Conclusion: The vast majority of the students had a positive attitude towards psychiatry in general yet it wasn’t preferred as their future career. It is thought that education and training of psychiatry may ameliorate the negative attitude towards the clinical importance but it may not affect their career aspiration.