Assessment of attitudes towards people with mental disorders among medical students - preliminary report

Aim. The aim of the study was to assess attitudes towards people with mental disorders.Method. The survey was carried out in a group of 93 students of the fifth year of medical studies, medical faculty, including 59 women and 34 men, aged 24.34 +/- 1.28 years.Results. In the conducted research, personal contact with a psychiatrist due to problems with their own mental health was declared by 23% of respondents. The choice of psychiatry as a field of specialization was declared by 19% of students. In the analysis of the question-naire on beliefs, as many as 83% of respondents considered that mental illness is a cause for shame. At the same time, 81% of respondents would consult a psychiatrist if someone from their relatives suggested it, and 54% saw no problem in informing their friends about this fact. When asked about the use of electroconvulsive therapy, 88% of respondents answered that it is still a method used in specific indications in the field of mental illness. Analyzing the attitude of the respondents to treatment, it was shown that as many as 80% of people believed that compulsory hospitalization was right. It should be emphasized that only 31% of the surveyed students thought that people with mental disorders should decide to have offspring, and 36% of people thought that mentally disturbed people would not be good as parents. As many as 30% of respondents believed that people with mental disorders more often commit crimes than healthy people, and 42% of students had no strong opinion in this aspect. In the study group, 15% of people stated that psychotropic drugs were mainly used to control aggressive behavior, and 58% indicated that they were addictive.Conclusions. The results of the research suggest the necessity of expanding knowledge and shaping appropriate attitudes towards people with mental disorders among future doctors.