Experience of psychiatry teaching at medical school influences Croatian medical students' attitudes towards choosing psychiatry as a career.

BACKGROUND: Reports indicate that the number of students interested in choosing psychiatry as their future profession is constantly decreasing in the last decades. Our aim was to determine the proportion of medical students intending to pursue a career in psychiatry and to define undergraduate education-related factors influencing that choice.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We report the preliminary findings of a cross sectional quantitative survey of final year Croatian medical students as part of the International Survey Of Student Career Choice In Psychiatry (ISOSCCIP). We surveyed medical students attending their final year at Zagreb School of Medicine in the academic year 2009/2010, using a structured questionnaire examining demographics, students' preferences on future career choice and their evaluations of undergraduate psychiatry teaching.

RESULTS: The overall student evaluation of the compulsory psychiatry curriculum was "average". Significantly higher ratings were reported by students who felt more involved in the teaching of the subject. The possibility of psychiatry as a career choice correlated significantly with better evaluation grades of psychiatry lectures. Furthermore, poor evaluation grades predicted a higher likelihood that medical students completely ruled out choosing a career in psychiatry.

CONCLUSION: This is the first survey of this kind in Croatia. Student ratings of medical school psychiatric education and perceived involvement in teaching appears to influence the likelihood of a stated career in psychiatry. Addressing these issues may increase the number of students motivated to pursue psychiatry as their future career choice.