Attitudes Toward Psychiatry as a Prospective Career among Medical Students in Their Pre-Clinical Year in China- A Pilot Study

OBJECTIVE: To understand the attitudes among medical students in China toward different medical specialties and to find the factors that influenced their choice of career in psychiatry. METHODS: A questionnaire was developed and administered to 287 medical students at the Xiangya Medical College, Central South University in Changsha, China. All the students were asked to rate the importance of five possible factors in choosing a specialty as a vocation: the ability to help patients, interesting and challenging work, lifestyle factors, financial reward, and prestige. RESULTS: Students reported negative perceptions of psychiatry in regard to all five possible factors that were important in choosing a specialty as a vocation, especially in financial reward and prestige. CONCLUSIONS: Medical students in China have negative attitudes toward psychiatry as a career. Some negative beliefs about psychiatry seem to be due to erroneous or insufficient knowledge that could be corrected during the course of medical education. Some negative attitudes were unlikely to be completely changed until the mental health system in China improves.