A COMPARISON OF CURRENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS PSYCHIATRY AMONG FIRST YEAR AND FINAL YEAR MBBS STUDENTS IN A MEDICAL COLLEGE OF EASTERN PART OF INDIA

Abstract

Background: Psychiatry in recent years has seen a lot of progress especially in the areas of neurobiology, neuroimaging and social sciences. To ensure proper care of psychiatric patients, young, passionate and open-minded doctors are definitely the need of the hour. Psychiatry has been included as a subject in final year MBBS students’ curriculum. Aims: To compare the attitude of the first and final year undergraduate MBBS students towards psychiatry. Methods: This is a cross-sectional analytical study conducted with the undergraduate students of first year and final year MBBS. “The pro forma enlisting the details of the demographic data and Attitude Towards Psychiatry scale (ATP-30) was given out to each participant after taking informed consent. “The qualitative data were depicted in terms of percentages and the quantitative data were expressed in terms of Mean + SD. The statistics were done using IBM SPSS 20V. Results: The mean ATP-30 score that was found to be higher for final year MBBS students (114.48+10.084) than first year students (83.93+11.083) although it was statistically insignificant (p=.117). Two item questionnaire, “Psychiatric patients are often more interesting to work with than other patients” and “It is quite easy for me to accept the efficacy of psychotherapy” had a higher mean score for final year students than the first year students that was significant statistically. Conclusion: Our study suggests the requirement to revise the current curriculum of psychiatry training imparted to the undergraduate students. Strategies like attitudinal interventions and de-stigmatization must be more focused.