The impact of antistigma education on the attitudes of first-year medical students towards mental illness

Abstract

Introduction The stigma and prejudice surrounding mental illness exist widely throughout the world. Several surveys have shown that the general population has limited knowledge about mental illness and holds unfavorable attitudes toward people with mental disorders and that physicians endorse these negative attitudes. Medical students and their attitudes towards psychiatry and psychotherapy as well as towards the mentally ill form the foundation of their later actions as medical doctors. Objective This study explored first-year medical students' beliefs, attitudes and desired social distance towards people with mental illness and assessed the impact of an antistigma education program in changing them. To achieve these aims a pre- and post questionnaire study design was followed. Methods A new 2-h educational program was developed to change attitudes towards mental illness, and was conducted on first-year medical students. The study was conducted on 250 medical students from University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iuliu Hatieganu, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (140 from Romanian section and 110 from English year). Results At 2 months after the intervention, the authors observed positive changes in students' attitude regarding mental illness. Conclusions According to the results of the current study, a relatively short and simple intervention could be successful in reducing the stigma of mental illness. Because the curriculum of undergraduate psychiatric training in Romania did not entail any specific antistigma training modules, one could argue that the present findings advocate for incorporation of such an orientation in undergraduate psychiatric training. Future work in this direction might shed light on the significance of such an education.