Child and adolescent psychiatry in the undergraduate medical curriculum

The preliminary findings of a prospective controlled investigation to evaluate the effects of teaching child and adolescent psychiatry to medical students are presented. The results confirmed that the combined teaching of child and adolescent psychiatry, psychiatry and paediatrics led to significant changes as assessed using a multiple choice questionnaire and an attitude questionnaire. Students who had received the combined teaching acquired greater knowledge and more positive attitudes. Caution is warranted when interpreting the results, however, due to the multiplicity of factors affecting outcome: the absence of any measure of the acquisition of clinical skills; no attempt to determine separate or interactive effects of psychiatry and paediatric teaching; and no measure of stability of the changes over time.