Attitudes of Medical Interns Toward Patients and Health Professionals

Abstract

The semantic differential technique was used to survey the medical interns of a large municipal hospital for their attitudes toward selected types of health professionals and selected types of patients. On the Evaluative, Activity and Potency Factors, the intern responses were more favorable toward the health professional group than toward the patient group. The interns displayed very little variation in the degree of positive attitudinal responses toward the health professionals. Among the patient types the interns were most favorable toward the acutely ill patient and least favorable toward three types of long-term patients. Some possible explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.