1. The impact of a psychiatry clinical rotation on the attitude of South African final year medical students towards mental illness
- Author
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Caro De Witt, Inge Smit, Esmè Jordaan, Liezl Koen, Dana J. H. Niehaus, and Ulla Botha
- Subjects
Stigma ,Mental illness ,Medical students ,Clinical training ,Special aspects of education ,LC8-6691 ,Medicine - Abstract
Abstract Background Stigmatising attitudes of health care professionals towards mental illness can impede treatment provided for psychiatric patients. Many studies have reported undergraduate training to be a critical period for changing the attitudes of medical students, and one particularly valuable intervention strategy involves time spent in a clinical psychiatric rotation. In South Africa, medical students are exposed to a clinical rotation in psychiatry but there is no evidence to show whether this has an effect on attitudes toward mental illness. Methods This prospective cohort study involved a convenience sample of 112 South African medical students in their 5th or 6th year of undergraduate training. This sample attended a 7-week psychiatry rotation. The Attitudes to Mental Illness Questionnaire (AMIQ) was used to assess students’ attitudes toward mental illness before and after the clinical rotation which includes exposure to a number of psychiatric sub-divisions and limited didactic inputs. Results There was a significant improvement (p
- Published
- 2019
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