ATTITUDE TOWARDS PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHIATRISTS AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS IN TERTIARY HEALTH CARE HOSPITAL

Background. Psychiatry is a medical subject; many medical students ignore its importance in medicine. Regarding mental illness, many medical professionals and students are less aware as mental illness is very important in affecting the quality of care the patient receives and in choosing psychiatry as a career. This study specializes in psychiatry based on many factors, however undergraduate students’ attitude towards career choice is the most important. Objective. This study aims to explore attitude towards psychiatry subject among undergraduate medical students. Methods. This is a Descriptive cross-sectional study done at Vikhe Patil Medical College, Ahmednagar. The total of 295 volunteer students from all phases of MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) were enrolled by purposive sampling, a 30-item self-administered questionnaire, ATP-30 (Attitude towards Psychiatry) was used to measure the attitude of medical students. Data collected was analysed using SPSS version 24. The results were reported as percentage and frequencies. Results. In the study, 47.4% of the respondents were males and 52.6% were females. Out of total study participants 52.3% of our study respondents strongly agreed that psychiatry was a respected branch of medicine; 56.7% strongly agreed that psychiatry should be an important part of medical curriculum; 19.4% of study respondents considered it in the list of the career choice while the majority did not think that it should be in their career list options. Conclusions. In the study, the students from the later phases of MBBS showed positive attitude than that of the initial phases. Many students found it as respected subject and essential field of medicine for their choice of profession. However, shortcoming knowledge and awareness was observed in the responses pertaining to present available treatment and recent trends in the field.