A Mental Health Elective to Improve Pharmacy Students' Perspectives on Mental Illness

Objective. To evaluate the impact of a mental health elective on pharmacy students' perceptions and stigmatizing views of mental illness. Design. An elective was designed that featured an advanced overview of psychopharmacology; student training in motivational interviewing; a presentation by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) local chapter; introduction to pharmacy collaborations with peer support specialists, social workers, and psychiatrists; mock patient counseling sessions; and a required psychiatric patient interview at a local community mental health center. Assessment. A survey instrument with 17 Likert-scale items was constructed to measure 2 distinct areas: social distance and stigmatizing views. The survey instrument was administered at the beginning and end of the spring 2010 semester to pharmacy students enrolled in the mental health elective course and to a control group of pharmacy students enrolled in an unrelated clinical elective. The course had a positive impact on pharmacy students' perceptions of mental illnesses. Students' social distance and stigmatizing views of mental illnesses improved, while no significant change in views occurred among students in the control group. Conclusion. Advanced training in psychiatric medicine and exposure to mental health care are vital to prepare pharmacy students to provide unbiased, patient-centered care to this population.