Abstract:
Objectives: To Evaluate Students’ Attitudes Towards the Profession of Psychiatry.
Study Design And Setting: This cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Psychiatry, Hamdard College
of Medicine and Dentistry, Hamdard University, Karachi, Pakistan, from March 2020 to August 2020. All undergraduate
students of different medical colleges and universities in Sindh were included in the study
Methodology: A total of 512 undergraduate students were registered in the study. Multiple email invitations with links to
Google Forms were sent to all undergraduate participants. The study comprised 2 sections: (1) The Demographics
Questionnaire and (2) Mental Illness Clinicians Attitude Scale (MICA), version-2 specific for medical students, a self administered scale, requiring about 5 minutes to complete it. Data was analyzed using SPSS Version 20.
Results: Out of 512 medical students surveyed from various medical colleges in the Sindh province of Pakistan, 279(54.5%)
were male and 233(45.5%) were female. According to the survey, 65% of students learn psychiatry because it is in exams.
Dow University of Health Sciences students had the lowest MICA score (41.06), indicating a positive attitude. whereas
students from Hamdard College of Medicine & Dentistry had the highest MICA score (57.12), indicating a negative
stigmatizing attitude.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that undergraduates have a negative attitude toward mental health. In Pakistan, the
subject of psychiatry is not tested as an individual subject, so students pay little attention. It is necessary that this subject
be examined separately like medicine and surgery.
