Factors influencing the choice of specialization in psychiatry among students of medical universities – a review

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The growing number of people struggling with mental disorders has a negative impact on the unstable staffing situation among psychiatrists both in Poland and in the world. The aim of the study was to identify and group the factors influencing the choice of specialization in psychiatry by students of medical faculties around the world. METHODS: The resources of five internet databases and search engines (PubMed, Base, Embase, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate) from the period 2014–2022 were searched using the following keywords in English: “psychiatry”, “career choice”, “medical student”, and “attitude to psychiatry”. RESULTS: 21 publications were qualified for the final analysis. Among the selected articles, the majority (n = 16) were descriptions of research results using original questionnaires and validated tools. Four categories of factors were distinguished: personality and social factors, related to psychiatry at university, resulting from the nature of the specialization, and resulting from work with psychiatrically treated patients. The factors positively influencing the choice are participation in additional classes in psychiatry and the presence of a mentally ill person in the student’s environment. The negative factors include the stigmatization of mental illnesses in society and the accompanying negative image of the specialization. CONCLUSIONS: When analyzing the articles in the internet databases and search engines, a lack of research in this area was observed in Poland. This should prompt further analyses and attempts to undertake them in terms of the country. This will enable improvement of the image of the specialization and an increase in interest in psychiatry among students, as well as the full use of places in the specialization.

Keywords

• psychiatry
• medical student
• career choice
• attitude to psychiatry
• stigmatization