Improved attitudes of interns versus undergraduate medical students towards patients with mental illness in Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND: The attitudes of medical students towards mental illness are important since these students will be providing care to this group in the future.

AIMS: To assess the beliefs and attitudes of undergraduate medical students regarding mental illness and to compare students at different levels.

METHODS: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students in the College of Medicine, Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia, during the 2018-2019 academic years. Male students were included from Years 3-5 (25 from each year) and 25 male interns using the proportionate stratified random sampling method. The participants responded to the Beliefs about Mental Illness (BMI) Scale and the Attitudes towards Mental Illness Questionnaire (AMIQ).

RESULTS: Bonferroni post hoc tests were used to conduct between-group comparisons of the year 3 group, who were at the beginning of their psychiatric training, with the other groups with more training. This revealed significant differences in scores for 11 of 21 items on the BMI Scale (P < 0.05). All questions regarding the 4 vignettes of the AMIQ (substance abuse, depression, psychosis, and obsessive compulsive disorders) showed a significant difference between students in year 3 and those in the other groups who had more psychiatric training (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The current medical psychiatric training positively improved the beliefs and attitudes of medical students towards patients with mental illnesses.