Attitude of Medical Students towards Mentally Ill Patients: Impact of Clinical Psychiatric Rotation

Abstract

Mental health is an essential component of health, mental disorders can affect not only individual quality of life but also national productivity (Wang et al., 2013). It is an ignored subject in the field of medicine. This neglect accounts for students’ lack of interest in psychiatry and fewer medical students consider psychiatry as a career choice as compared to other medical subspecialties (Aslam et al., 2009). There is a growing concern about mental health literacy, Jorm found that members of the public from many countries have poor mental health literacy, which could have widespread implications for clinical care, including lack of adherence to evidence-based mental health care and help-seeking behaviors (Furnham et al., 2008). Mental disorders are common, widespread and are becoming major contributors to the global burden of disease (GBD) (Abd Malik-Chia, 2012). Many of them suffer alone and in silence, many never receive treatment of any kind. Between them and the prospect of care stand the barriers of stigma, prejudice, shame and exclusion (Arboleda-Florez and Sartorius, 2008). In Egypt, one of the most commonly cited reasons for the under-use of available psychiatric services by the lay-public is the notion of stigma (Coker, 2005), signs of mental health problems may be ignored by the patient and the patient's family, resulting in a delay in seeking professional help (Furnham et al., 2008). Furnham and colleagues found also that supernatural explanations, such as witchcraft and possession by evil spirits, are often used in non-Western cultures to explain the etiology of mental disorders, but this is not common in the West. Patients may wear a protective charm called a “Tavees”, which may constitute holy verses from the Quran, and is used as a defense mechanism against witchcraft (Furnham et al., 2008). _______________________________ Introduction________ 2 However, psychiatry as a discipline is often perceived as ‘different’ by other medical professionals as much as by a common man. This perception of ‘difference’ may give rise to stigma both towards mental illness and to mental health professionals. Mental health professionals are thus both recipients of stigma and agents who can de-stigmatize psychiatry (Kalra, 2012). Psychiatry as medical specialty seems to be losing its appeal. At the end of World War II, between 7-10% of medicine majors in the United States used to choose psychiatry as a career. Two different reasons have been presented as explanations. Either medicine students nowadays are less attracted to psychiatry in comparison with other alternatives, or their experience while taking the undergraduate course was unsatisfactory and this led to their rejection of that specialty (Ortiz et al., 2010). For decades psychiatrists have been subjected to jokes and ridicule because of their seemingly mysterious and incomprehensive ways of understanding the human mind and human passions (Okasha, 1995). Goffman, in his classic 1963 work, defined