Attitudes of Medical Students to Psychiatry in a Nigerian University

Background :Despite advances made in the understanding of psychiatric illness and its treatment, there is still a wide spread negative attitude to psychiatry. Medical students being part of the public also hold negative attitude to psychiatry. This negative attitude may influence their choice of psychiatry as a future career. The aim of this study was to examine medical students' attitude towards psychiatry at the beginning and end of clinical clerkship posting and to assess whether the clerkship posting influenced the likelihood of taking psychiatry as a future career. Methods : The ATP-30 questionnaire was administered to medical students in a University in the North-Central Nigeria at the beginning and end of clinical clerkship in psychiatry. Results : There was a fairly positive attitude to psychiatry at the beginning and end of the posting (mean ATP scores were 91.8 ± 7.6 and 92.5 ± 8.5 respectively). There was no statistically significant difference in ATP score after the posting. Only about 16% of the students would like to become psychiatrists at beginning of posting and this increased to only about 20% after the posting despite having a positive attitude to psychiatrists and psychiatric treatments. Conclusion : Medical schools need to improve the quality of the psychatric posting so as to impact positively on the attitude of students.