Background: Undergraduate’s attitude towards psychaitric patient is very crucial to maintain the treatment gap due to mental illness. Psychiatry is still the neglected subject and there is a huge deficit of psychiatrists and mental health professionals particularly in J&K . Aims & objectives: To compare medical student’s and intern’s attitude towards mental illness and psychiatry and to assess the impact of psychiatric training on attitude of students towards the mental illness. Methodology: This longitudinal study was conducted for a period of six months among Phase II MBBS, Phase III part I MBBS students and interns of Government Medical College Hospital Jammu. The participating students were assessed by using the Questionnaires – 1. Attitude Towards Psychiatry -30 (ATP-30) scale and 2. Mental Illness Clinician’s Attitude (MICA) scale. The statistical test was done using SPSS version (20.0) . A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Most of questions in ATP-30 scale showed significant improvement in post clinical postings with a statistically significant p-value less than 0.05. While few questions on MICA scale showed improvement. After the clinical posting, 15 (13.6%) of students opted psychiatry as a speciality, which is not statistically significant. Conclusion: The positive attitude of the students towards psychiatric patients would help in reducing the stigma attached to people with mental illness and mental health professionals.
Bala et al. (Fri,) studied this question.