TY - JOUR
TI - A survey of the attitudes of Greek medical students toward
electroconvulsive therapy
AU - Papakosta, VMI
AU - Zervas, IM
AU - Pehlivanidis, A
AU - Papadimitriou, GN
AU - and Papakostas, YG
JO - The Journal of ECT
PY - 2005
VL - 21
TODO - 3
SP - 162-164
PB - Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
SN - 1095-0680, 1533-4112
TODO - 10.1097/01.yct.0000170036.13610.a9
TODO - electroconvulsive therapy; attitudes; medical students; educational
lecture
TODO - Data on attitudes toward electroconvulsive therapy have been reported
from various countries; no information, however, is available from
Greece. In this survey, we report the results of a questionnaire
reflecting the general attitude of Greek medical students toward ECT. A
total of 161 sixth (final)-year medical students who had no previous
exposure to a formal didactic experience on ECT, were asked to complete
a questionnaire before attending a scheduled 90-minute lecture on ECT,
as part of their regular curriculum. Questions in the questionnaire
could be grouped to indicate a positive, a reserved, or a negative
attitude toward ECT Overall, before the lecture, 50.3% held a positive
attitude toward ECT, 43.5% were reserved, and 6.2% held a negative
attitude. A subgroup of these students (n = 137) were asked again to
score the same questionnaire immediately following the lecture to rate
the impact of the didactic seminar. The proportion of students with a
positive attitude after the lecture was increased to 78.1%, (P <
0.001), while the proportion of students with reserved and negative
attitudes were reduced to 20.4% (P < 0.001) and 1.5%, respectively.
These encouraging findings reflect, however, only the immediate effects
of the lecture and do not guarantee persistence of this change in
attitudes over time.
ER -