Attitudes toward psychiatry and psychiatric patients in medical students: Can real-world experiences reduce stigma?

Abstract

IntroductionStigma towards psychiatry and mental illness significantly worsens the quality of life of psychiatric patients. Negative prejudices in medical students make it difficult for future doctors to send patients to mental health services and promote an increased risk of premature death.AimsOur aim is to assess stigma towards mental illness and psychiatry in medical students, and to study the influence of real-world experiences, such as having visited a psychiatric ward, having personally met a psychiatric patient or having friends and/or family members who suffer from a mental illness.MethodsOne hundred and thirteen Italian medical students completed the following tests:– Attitudes Towards Psychiatry (ATP-30);– Community Attitudes Towards Mental Ill (CAMI);– Perceived Discrimination Devaluation Scale (PDD);– Baron-Cohen's Empathy Quotient (EQ).ResultsHaving visited a psychiatric ward correlates with a better attitude towards psychiatry (P = 0.008), rather than towards the mentally ill. Having personally known someone with mental disorders correlates with less stigmatizing scores in CAMI: total score (P = 0.002), authoritarianism (P < 0.001), benevolence (P = 0.047) and social restriction (P = 0.001). Similar results emerged in those who have close relationships with a psychiatric patient. There is no statistical significance as to empathy.ConclusionsThe students who have visited a psychiatric ward have a less stigmatizing vision of psychiatry, while having personally known psychiatric patients favors a less stigmatizing attitude towards them. Those who have not had this experience, have a more hostile and intolerant vision of mental illness, and consider psychiatric patients as inferior subjects that require coercive attitudes and that would be better to avoid because socially dangerous.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.