ArticleBMC medical education2025
Are we ready yet? A qualitative study exploring undergraduate medical students' readiness for psychiatry placements.
Article in BMC medical education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe purpose of this study was to better understand students’ experiences of readiness for their psychiatry clinical placement and eventual clinical practice in mental health units.
methodsInterviews with fourth year undergraduate medical students were conducted and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Themes were identified that describe participant experiences of preparation and readiness for placements in mental health units.
resultsEight participants provided detailed accounts of experiences prior to medical school, during medical school and during placements in mental health units that influenced their perceptions and attitudes towards people who experience mental illness and mental distress. Themes identified in this study included: Conceptual readiness (and unreadiness), Procedural readiness (and unreadiness) and, Dispositional readiness (and unreadiness). Findings indicate that students do not approach their mental health placements in the same way as they do for other placements. They fear many components of mental health environments, including their own capacity to engage with people without causing further harm. Students had varied attitudes and experiences that shaped their conceptual ideas relating to psychiatry and their procedural readiness to undertaken tasks such as communicating with, and assessment of people experiencing mental distress and mental illnesses.
conclusionMedical students will encounter people who experience mental illness and mental distress regardless of which discipline they choose to specialise. We have an obligation to support students to feel conceptually, procedurally and dispositionally ready to learn and practice when they prepare for clinical placement in mental health units, and indeed for their future practice.
trial registrationNot applicable.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.