What do medical students think about medical doctors with mental health issues?

ABSTRACT

Medical professionals tend to stigmatise people with mental issues. The study aimed to examine the attitude of medical students towards doctors with mental disorders. An anonymous online survey was created. Eleven psychiatric conditions were included and graded on a 0–4 scale to assess perceived security of working as a Medical Doctor (MD) with them. Based on the gradation the numeric variable called discriminative attitude was calculated. Five hundred answers were collected. The majority of the participants understood the need of consultancy by psychiatrist while suffering from mental disorders (70%). Students answered more harshly when assessing each of the eleven disorders separately, than for the general questions. There is a significant need for special anti-stigmatisation classes during university education.

KEYWORDS:

• Stigma
• Poland
• students
• mental disorders

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data supporting the findings of this paper can be obtained from the authors.