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Effects of a one‐hour educational program on medical students' attitudes to mental illness
Author(s) -
Mino Yoshio,
Yasuda Nobufumi,
Tsuda Toshihide,
Shimodera Shinji
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1819
pISSN - 1323-1316
DOI - 10.1046/j.1440-1819.2001.00896.x
Subject(s) - mental illness , mentally ill , psychiatry , psychology , independence (probability theory) , attitude change , educational program , clinical psychology , mental health , medicine , social psychology , statistics , mathematics , political science , law
A new 1‐h educational program was developed to change attitudes towards mental illness, and was conducted on 95 first‐year medical students in order to investigate its effects on their attitudes towards mental illness, using a pre‐ and postquestionnaire study design. A similar study without the program was conducted on 94 first‐year medical students as controls. After the program, more students replied that they would accept former patients on relatively close social distance items. Favorable attitudinal changes were observed in terms of ‘psychiatric services’, ‘human rights of the mentally ill’, ‘patients’ independence in social life’, and ‘cause and characteristics of mental illness’. In contrast, no significant change was observed in the control group. These results suggest that attitudes towards mental illness could be changed favorably by this program.