The development and validation of a thirty item, Likert-type scale designed to measure medical students' attitudes to psychiatry-the ATP-30 (Attitudes Toward Psychiatry-30 items)-are described. We had hoped to demonstrate that 'attitude to psychiatry' was not a unitary matter but an amalgam of attitudes to a number of things to do with psychiatric practice. This hope was not fulfilled, as a unitary dimension was obtained. A positive change in the attitudes of students toward psychiatry was demonstrated in third and fourth medical year students in relation to exposure to psychiatry. Such a change was not demonstrable in two classes of occupational therapy students exposed to a course in psychiatry. The reasons for this difference between medical students and occupational therapy students are discussed-there possibly being important implications here for psychiatric curriculum planning in medical school. Lastly, we have demonstrated that the positive change in attitudes amongst medical students was transient rather than lasting-a matter which most studies of attitude change do not address. In spite of the apparent impermanence of the positive change in attitudes among medical students, there are a number of possible used to a scale such as the ATP-30, and these are discussed.

The ATP 30-a scale for measuring medical students' attitudes to psychiatry.

OBJECTIVE: The number of U.S. medical graduates choosing careers in psychiatry is in decline. In order to determine whether this disinclination toward psychiatry occurs before versus during medical school, this study surveyed medical students at the start of their freshman year. METHOD: Within the first 2 weeks of medical training, 223 freshman medical students from three Southwestern medical schools were surveyed with a questionnaire designed to assess their perceptions of careers in various specialties. RESULTS: Responses suggest that new medical students most strongly value aspects of doctoring that seem to comport well with the actual practice of psychiatry: desire for interpersonal contact, helping patients, attractive lifestyle, and challenging work. However, these students begin their medical training viewing a career in psychiatry as distinctly and consistently less attractive than other specialties surveyed. More than one-quarter of the new medical students had already definitively ruled out a ca...

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.156.9.1397

Attitudes Toward Psychiatry as a Prospective Career Among Students Entering Medical School

Aims
To compare the efficacy of two teaching styles, didactic teaching and problem based learning, in producing enduring change in final-year medical students’ attitudes towards psychiatry and mental illness.

Method
A 1-year follow-up questionnaire survey of two groups of medical students taught psychiatry in their fourth-year training by two different methods. One-year follow-up scores were compared with pre-attachment and post-attachment scores in the fourth year.

Results
70 (68%) students completed both questionnaires at follow-up. The follow-up scores were significantly lower compared with both the fourth-year pre-attachment and post-attachment scores, suggesting that the positive change in attitudes following psychiatric training in the fourth year significantly decayed during the final year. The two teaching methods did not differ in the magnitude of this reduction.

Conclusions
The positive change that occurs in medical students’ attitude towards psychiatry, psychiatrists and mental illness after their fourth-year psychiatric training is transient and decays over the final year.

The attitudes of 'tomorrow's doctors' towards mental illness and psychiatry: changes during the final undergraduate year.

Fear Reduction Techniques with Children

Summary. Using a reliable measure, a self-administered questionnaire (ATP), and adequate numbers of students, this study demonstrates the negative effects of general medical/surgical training and the positive effect of the psychiatry clerkship on students' reported attitudes towards psychiatry. A negative view of psychiatry at the beginning of the clerkship may make students reluctant to improve their interview skills but is otherwise unimportant in determining their reactions and performance in the clerkship. Medical students' interest in psychiatry as a career increases during the psychiatry clerkship but this merely offsets the decline in interest that occurs at other stages during the clinical training.



Much of the attitudinal change that occurs during the psychiatry clerkship is maintained into the pre-registration year but the housemen recorded a significant negative change on the items concerning efficacy of psychiatric treatment and attitudes towards psychiatric patients. Additional training by psychiatrists during the pre-registration year might increase the motivation of young doctors to detect and treat psychiatric illness which they will encounter in all branches of medicine.

Students' attitudes towards psychiatry

Imagery and relaxation with a burn patient

As psychiatry assumes a more prominent position in the medical school core curriculum, it should attempt to fulfill educational goals applicable to all physicians including the establishment of positive attitudes toward all patients including psychiatric patients. With the establishment of a required two month psychiatry clerkship, this became an educational goal. Attitudes toward mental illness were measured in 43, third year medical students on 3 different occasions: (a) before the clerkship, (b) immediately upon completion, and (c) in 32 of the original 43 after graduation from medical school. The results indicate that attitude change is a reasonable goal and that once achieved, changes are sustained.

Donald J. Weinstein

Papers

Imagery and relaxation with a burn patient

Enduring Attitude Change in Medical Students