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How and why do medical students engage with or disengage from undergraduate psychiatry education in India - a study using constructivist grounded theory

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posted on 2024-03-08, 14:49 authored by Janet Allison

For almost 60 years, the Indian psychiatry literature has called for medical students to learn psychiatry in order to help the millions of people in India who have a diagnosable mental illness but receive no treatment. For the same number of years, the literature says that medical students have not engaged in psychiatry education, leaving millions of people without the help they need. Many senior psychiatrists have expressed opinions as to how to improve engagement in psychiatry education, but until now, no-one has asked the students.

This research has therefore sought to understand how and why medical students engage in or disengage from undergraduate psychiatry education in India. The methodology used was constructivist grounded theory, which in addition to being appropriate to explain a little understood social phenomenon, also aligns with a decolonisation research framework, which is vital for myself as a Western researcher undertaking intercultural research in India.

The grounded theory produced explains how engagement or disengagement in psychiatry education is dependent on whether students’ learning goals are fulfilled or not. Most students attend psychiatry education wanting to learn clinical skills. If teaching faculty do not teach clinical skills, students disengage, perceiving psychiatry education as insignificant, despite the vast majority believing it is an important subject all doctors should know. This dual perception of psychiatry as simultaneously important yet insignificant is a recurring pattern seen throughout Indian society, including in governmental policies, mental health services and medical education – a pattern which makes student disengagement in psychiatry education almost inevitable.

This research provides an evidence-based theory to underpin the governmental need to prioritise the teaching of clinical skills in undergraduate psychiatry education, both in policy and practice. If faculty are enabled to teach psychiatry skills, this would address the learning goals of medical students, who with consequentially increased engagement would learn how to address the unmet mental health needs across India.

History

Institution

Anglia Ruskin University

File version

  • Published version

Thesis name

  • Professional Doctorate

Thesis type

  • Doctoral

Thesis submission date

2024-01-16

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

Faculty of Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences

Note

Accessibility note: If you require a more accessible version of this thesis, please contact us at arro@aru.ac.uk

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