Medical Student Attitudes and Perceptions on the Relevance of Neuroscience to Psychiatry: a Mixed Methods Study

Many psychiatry residency programs are actively incorporating neuroscience training into their curricula; however, relatively little scholarship exploring neuroscience and psychiatry integration in undergraduate medical education has been conducted. This study investigated second-year, pre-clerkship medical students' perceptions on the relationship between neuroscience and psychiatry following foundational neuroscience and behavior instruction to identify their views before they enter clerkships.

A mixed methods design combined qualitative analysis of medical students' essays in response to the prompt: "What is the relationship between neuroscience and psychiatry?" with quantitative analysis of survey responses on a 7-point scale.

Ninety-three percent of the class participated in the study (n = 77). Learners rated neuroscience as important for understanding and treating psychiatric disorders, albeit less important for psychiatric compared to neurological disorders. Using applied thematic analysis, the authors identified qualitative themes. Specifically, participants recognized neuroscience as a foundational science for psychiatry, but some emphasized that factors other than neuroscience are needed to explain psychiatric disorders. Some students perceived neuroscience and psychiatry as complementary approaches to understanding the brain and behavior. Others identified a role for neuroscience in reducing the stigma of psychiatric disorders and thereby improving access to psychiatric care.

The quantitative and qualitative findings reinforced each other and provided novel insight to pre-clerkship medical students' views on the relevance of neuroscience for psychiatry. Educating all medical students, not just psychiatry residents, on the neuroscience of psychiatric disorders may better equip the next generation of physicians, regardless of specialty, to care for their patients with psychiatric conditions.