Abstract

GILABERTE, Inmaculada; FAILDE, Inmaculada; SALAZAR, Alejandro  and  CABALLERO, Luis. Medicine 5th course student's attitudes towards mental health. Educ. méd. [online]. 2012, vol.15, n.4, pp.227-233. ISSN 1575-1813.

Introduction. Medicine students could share that stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness and Psychiatry as specialty. Aim. To investigate the attitudes of medical students towards the mental disease and the psychiatry. Subjects and methods. 27 medicine 5th course students from San Pablo-CEU University were interviewed with a structured interview containing questionnaires of familiarity with mental disease, attitudes towards mental disease and the Balon's adapted questionnaire to investigate the positive and negative views towards psychiatry as specialty. Results. 22 students responded the interview (72.7% women). The students showed a high familiarity regarding mental disease (mean score: 7.27; max.: 11). 81.8% of the students showed positive attitudes towards mental disease according with the AMI questionnaire. The students' attitudes and views of psychiatry were mostly positive with heterogeneous agreement on the role of psychiatrists and the career rewards. We don't find any relation between familiarity regarding mental disease and the attitude to these pathologies and the psychiatry as a professional specialty. Conclusions. Students' attitudes towards mental illness and psychiatry didn't reveal any stigmatized attitudes. More studies with larger samples are needed to know more deeply the students attitudes and if medical education could influence them.

Keywords : Medicine students; Mental disease; Stigma.

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