title: Nursing students' attitude change towards mental illness and psychiatric case recognition after a clerkship in psychiatry.
abstract: Attitudes towards mental illness were measured in all 92 students of the seventh semester in the School of Nursing of Athens University before (time 1) and after (time 2) the completion of 40 and 90 hours of lectures on clinical psychiatry and clerkship, respectively. The instrument used to measure attitudinal dimensions was the Cohen and Struening's Opinions about Mental Illness (OMI) scale, which yieldsfive factors and was proven to be reliable and valid in previous studies. Hypothetical case vignettes were used to assess psychiatric case recognition. In factors A, B, and D statistically significant differences in attitudes towards mental illness between time I and 2 were observed. It seems that the completion of training in psychiatry influenced the students' opinions about mental illness; they expressed less authoritarianism and discriminatory beliefs as well as positive views about social integration of mentally ill persons. The group of students who failed to recognize the case vignettes satisfactorily also expressed negative views in four out of five OMI scale factors.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, Greece. madianos@nurs.uoa.gr
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Madianos
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Priami
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Alevisopoulos
authors.forename: Evmorfia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Koukia
authors.forename: Efi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rogakou
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000193:education*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013240:Stereotyping