Medical student's attitude toward psychiatry (Shiraz, 2005)

Physician’s attitude toward an illness is an important factor for proper therapeutic alliance. It can play a negative role in some diseases. In this regard, we attempted to compare the attitudes of medical students toward psychiatric patients at the beginning and the end of their two months curriculum. By “Medical Condition Regard Scale” questionnaire, we compare 49 students (28 men, 21 women) at the beginning and the end of 2 months course in psychiatry ward of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Female students showed significant improvement in her attitudes at the end of curriculum. However, in male students, attitude change was not significant. These findings can be attributed to different effects of education on men and women. If it were true, we needed proper planning to improve the attitudes of our students and further studies to evaluate probable interfering factors.