Date of Award

January 2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Medical Doctor (MD)

Department

Medicine

First Advisor

Robert Rosenheck

Second Advisor

Victor Makanjuola

Abstract

The authors surveyed attitudes towards mental illness among medical students who had not completed their psychiatry rotation, medical students who had completed their psychiatry rotation, and graduate physicians. Six questions addressed beliefs about the effectiveness of treatments for four specific mental illnesses and two medical illnesses. There were no significant trends in attitudes towards the effectiveness of medication. A self-report questionnaire including 56 dichotomous items was used to compare beliefs about and attitudes towards people with mental illness. Exploratory factor analysis of the items identified four factors: (1) comfort socializing with people with mental illness; (2) non-superstitious beliefs about the causes of mental illness; (3) neighborly feelings towards people with mental illness; and (4) belief that stress and abuse are part of the etiology of mental illness. ANCOVA comparing attitudes among the three groups showed that on three (1, 2, and 4) of the four factors medical students who had completed a rotation in psychiatry had significantly higher scores than the medical students who had not completed a rotation in psychiatry. Graduate physicians scored higher than the medical students who had not completed a rotation in psychiatry in two factors (1 and 4) but showed no differences from students who had completed their psychiatry rotation. While beliefs about medication effectiveness do not differ between medical trainees and graduate professionals, stigmatizing attitudes towards people with mental illness seem to be most strongly affected by clinical training.

Comments

This thesis is restricted to Yale network users only. This thesis is permanently embargoed from public release.

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