Awareness about psychiatry in undergraduate medical students in Nepal

Undergraduate medical students in developing countries have a number of misnotions and misconceptions about psychiatry. Carefully planned teaching programmes providing more interactions of students with faculty during a short span may be helpful in increasing students' awareness and positive attitude towards psychiatry. This study was conducted to assess the impact of a two weeks training programme on the awareness of medical students about psychiatry, its scope and treatment modalities. The subjects included a batch of 29 third year medical students in a medical college in Nepal. A pre and post-test was done before and after conducting the training programme for two weeks using a 20 item semi-structured questionnaire. Students' awareness about psychiatric disorders like anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, personality disorders, delirium and mania, psychological manifestations of physical illnesses, electroconvulsive therapy and psychological methods of treatment improved significantly after the teaching programme. The findings show that teaching programme on psychiatry even for a brief period of two weeks is useful in increasing awareness and correcting the misconceptions about the speciality.