Impact of Psychiatric Internship on Medical Graduates: Quasi Experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Physical health is incomplete without mental health; despite this fact Psychiatric teaching and training of medical health professionals is an undermined area especially in developing countries like Pakistan. This study is aimed to determine the impact of knowledge, attitude and perception towards Psychiatry and also possible change in the career choice of medical graduates (house job interns) of public sector hospital of Karachi after doing internship in Psychiatry Methods: This Quasi experimental study was conducted in 40 medical graduates house job interns who were doing 12 weeks internship in Psychiatry department of Dow Medical College & Dr Ruth K.M.Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi from April 2020 to March 2021 on quarterly basis. A Self synthesized pretested questionnaire was employed twice at pre internship and post internship levels and two semi structured questions were also administered to qualitatively compare their responses. SPSS-19 was applied to statistically analyze the result and paired sample t-test was used to compare both pre and post internship scores Results: There was found statistically significant impact of psychiatric internship on medical graduates (preinternship; M=52.2, SD=10.8 and post internship M=60.6, SD=8.3); t(39)=-4.6,p=<0.001. The possibility of choosing psychiatry as a career increased from 15% to 57.5%. These results suggest that psychiatric internship actually makes certain degree of difference in the individual's knowledge, attitude and perception Conclusion: This study has found the remarkable impact of 12 weeks Psychiatric internship on medical intern's knowledge, attitude and perception. It emphasized the essential role of structured teaching, training and exposure to patients for mitigation of misperceptions and development of genuine concepts towards psychiatry.