DESIGN: A required 2-credit-hour course was designed to provide an overview of public health pharmacy roles and the behavioral aspects of human healthcare issues. Graded activities included nursing home visits, in-class quizzes, mini-projects, and poster sessions, and a comprehensive final examination.
ASSESSMENT: The majority of the students performed well on the class activities and 93 (71.5%) of the 130 students enrolled received a grade of B or higher. A Web-based survey was administered at the end of the semester and 90% of students indicated that they had benefited from the course and were glad that it was offered. The majority of students agreed that the course made an impact in preparing them for their future role as pharmacists and expanded their understanding of the public health roles of a pharmacist.
CONCLUSIONS: A public health pharmacy course was successfully designed and implemented in the BPharm curriculum. This study highlighted the feasibilities of introducing courses that are of global relevance into a Malaysian pharmacy curriculum. The findings from the students' evaluation suggest the needs to incorporate a similar course in all pharmacy schools in the country and will be used as a guide to improve the contents and methods of delivery of the course at our school.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 122 year 4 medical students responded to this study. The Attitudes Towards Mental Illness (AMI) and Attitudes Towards Psychiatry (ATP) questionnaires were administered before and after an 8-week attachment in psychiatry.
RESULTS: We found that students had somewhat favourable attitudes towards psychiatry and mental illness at the start of their attachment, with a mean score of 108.34 on ATP (neutral score, 90) and 68.24 on AMI (neutral score, 60). There was a significant increase in the mean scores of both scales following the psychiatric attachment for female students (ATP: P = 0.003; AMI: P <0.0005), but not male students (ATP: P = 0.435; AMI: P = 0.283).
CONCLUSIONS: An 8-week clinical posting of fourth-year medical students in psychiatry was associated with an increase in positive attitudes to mental illness and to psychiatry among female students but not among male students.