Attitudes of Medical and Pharmacy Students Towards Patients Suffering from Schizophrenia

Abstract

Abstract Research over the past twenty years has shown that the attitudes of health care workers and students towards people who are suffering from schizophrenia have become more negative. The aim of our study was to investigate the attitudes of medical and pharmacy students towards patients with schizophrenia and explore the differences in attitudes between study groups and students in different years. Materials and methods: Second- and fifth-year medical and pharmacy students from the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Kragujevac were included in an observational, prospective, cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 113 students from the pharmacy and medical schools who were chosen via random sampling. The students completed a two-part questionnaire. Th e first part contained questions about sociodemographic characteristics, whereas the second part was a translated version of the Mental Illness: Clinician’s Attitudes (MICA) v4 scale. Results: There is a statistically significant difference (р<0.05) in the attitudes towards people with schizophrenia between second- and fifth-year medical and pharmacy students (with lower scores in both groups in fifth-year students). Of the total number of students who had lower summed scores on the Likert scale, 51.3% had previously finished medical high school, whereas 28.3% had previously finished regular high school. Conclusion: Our results showed a statistically significant difference in attitudes towards people with schizophrenia between second- and fifth-year students as well as a difference related to previous high school education. This stresses the importance of levels of knowledge about schizophrenia to reducing the stigmatization of patients who suffer from this disorder.