Medical students’ attitudes towards mental disorders and their correlation with academic performance

Abstract

They are probably not interested in mental illnesses during their studies or other kinds of factors may be causing this. Objetive. Identify which mental disorders were most interesting to a group of medical students and how that preference correlates with academic performance. Methods. After three months of theoretical lessons and a four-hour practice, 93 medicine students at the Universidad de los Andes of Venezuela, expressed and justified their preference for a specific topic of psychiatry. These data were correlated to academic performance. Results. The most popular topic was alcoholism with a 34.4% of preference, followed by bipolar disorder with 26.9%. The main reasons for selection were having had some contact with the illness and finding the topic interesting. A total of 52.2% “failed” students preferred alcoholism versus 28.6% of “passed” students (p=0.039). Conclusions. Students with higher academic average were attracted to bipolar disorder because they found it interesting whereas the students with lower academic average preferred alcoholism because family members or acquaintances exhibited the symptoms or had drinking habits. Keywords: Medical students. Mental disorders. Psychiatry.