Effectiveness of psychiatric clinical posting on attitudes toward psychiatry and mental illness among medical, nursing and other healthcare students: systematic review

Abstract

This review aimed to systematically identify and appraise available evidence on the effectiveness of clinical psychiatric posting on the attitudes of health science students toward mental illness and psychiatry. The data were sourced from Scopus, ScienceDirect and PubMed. The references of the included studies were searched using Google Scholar. The search was done across the above databases from 20th October to 21st December, 2023. This review followed the preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) outline. The quality of the articles was assessed using critical appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies. The review showed mixed results. Clinical psychiatric posting is effective in attitudinal changes toward mental illness and psychiatry when the duration is six weeks or longer (p < 0.001). When the posting followed teachings in psychiatry and anti-stigma orientation, it had more significant impacts on the attitudes (p < 0.001). This review highlights the importance of the duration of clinical psychiatric posting, teaching in psychiatry and anti-stigma orientation in improving the effectiveness of the training modality. Longer duration of postings (six weeks or more) that followed teachings in psychiatry and anti-stigma orientation has been shown to be more effective. This calls for curricular reform and policy formation.