RESEARCH ARTICLE
How Mental Illness is Perceived by Iranian Medical Students: A Preliminary Study
Homayoun Amini a, b, *, Reza Majdzadeh c, d, Hasan Eftekhar-Ardebili d, e, Amir Shabani f, Rozita Davari-Ashtiani g
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 9
First Page: 62
Last Page: 68
Publisher ID: CPEMH-9-62
DOI: 10.2174/1745017901309010062
Article History:
Received Date: 31/12/2012Revision Received Date: 3/3/2013
Acceptance Date: 4/3/2013
Electronic publication date: 19/4/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided thework is properly cited.
Abstract
The study aimed to assess medical students' attitudes toward mental illness following a 4-week psychiatry clerkship. All fifth-year medical students from three academic centers in Tehran were asked to participate in the study. They completed the questionnaire on the last day of their 4-week psychiatry clerkship. A self-administered questionnaire was used to examine participants' Attitudes Toward Mental Illness (ATMI). One hundred and sixty eight students completed the questionnaires (88.9% response rate). In general, the students had favorable attitudes toward mental illness at the end of their clerkship, with mean (± SD) ATMI total score of 78.6 (± 8.1) (neutral score, 66.0). The students showed the most favorable opinion (95.2%) about Category 5 (stereotypic attitude toward people with mental illness) whilst they revealed the least favorable opinion (64.3%) regarding Category 1 (social relations with people affected by mental illness). In addition, the students thought that movies were on the top of influential media on shaping the attitudes toward mental illness. Overall, most of Iranian medical students had generally favorable attitudes toward people with mental illness at the end of their clerkship. Therefore, it may be expected next generation of medical doctors show more favorable attitude toward mental illness.
