1. Empathy and attitudes towards mental illness among Italian medical students
- Author
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Paolo Parente, E. Stella, Gino Pozzi, Rossana Nicastro, Andrea De Angelis, Luigi Janiri, Maddalena La Montagna, M. Pascucci, Antonello Bellomo, Antonio Ventriglio, and Dario Di Sabatino
- Subjects
Cultural Studies ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Social Psychology ,Social stigma ,Settore MED/25 - PSCHIATRIA ,media_common.quotation_subject ,education ,Stigma (botany) ,medical students ,Empathy ,social stigma ,Empathy quotient ,Affect (psychology) ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Health care ,medicine ,030212 general & internal medicine ,empathy ,Psychiatry ,Attitudes ,psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental Health ,media_common ,business.industry ,Mental illness ,medicine.disease ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Scale (social sciences) ,business ,Psychology ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
There is a growing interest regarding the attitudes of medical students towards people with mental illness, since discrimination and stigma may affect healthcare workers and education should be aimed to improve empathy and attitudes at medical school level. A cross-sectional study was conducted at medical schools in Rome and Foggia (Italy). We recruited 339 medical students who completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire including sociodemographic data, the 40-item Community Attitudes toward the Mentally Ill scale (CAMI) and the 60-item Baron Cohen’s Empathy Quotient. The questionnaires were administered before and after the yearly academic course of psychiatry. This study shows a significant improvement in some CAMI items and total score after the yearly academic course of psychiatry among medical students, especially among those who had personal experience with mentally ill people (including the training in a psychiatric ward). Female students reported higher empathy quotient and CAMI score...
- Published
- 2017
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