Open AccessTeaching Medical Students about Communicating with Patients with Major Mental Illness
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of general internal medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.746
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 1525-1497
pISSN - 0884-8734
DOI - 10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.02110001.x
Subject(s) - mental illness , medicine , mental health , psychiatry , population , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , citation , family medicine , library science , environmental health , computer science
Persons with major mental illness, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, often have worse physical health than other persons. Despite this, they frequently have difficulty getting medical care beyond psychiatry, especially trouble finding doctors who communicate well with them. Doctors outside psychiatry generally are not taught how to communicate effectively with persons with major mental illness. We interviewed 13 students in their last months of medical school to learn about what they were taught about communicating with persons with major mental illness. Their experiences suggest issues to consider in improving communication skills of future physicians for caring for this population.