Pharmacy Student Attitudes to Mental Health Care: A Longitudinal Survey

Abstract Background Attitudes to mental illness are an important factor in the willingness of professionals to engage in mental health care. Aim We sought to understand the attitudes of undergraduate pharmacy students in Ireland to severe mental illness and the provision of medicines optimisation services. Further, we aimed to understand if these attitudes changed through the course of the students’ undergraduate training. Methods A survey instrument was compiled using existing published research. The survey was distributed to students in their first, third and MPharm years annually between 2014 and 2019. Results The overall response rate to the survey was 25%. Respondents were mostly female (77.5%) and knew someone experiencing mental illness (83.2%). Notwithstanding generally positive attitudes, a sizeable proportion of students felt people with severe depression and schizophrenia were hard to talk to (29.2% vs 25.3%). Less than half of MPharm students expressed confidence and competence in caring for people with more severe mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and 29% of students would feel awkward asking someone about their antipsychotic medication. Almost two thirds (63.8%) expressed an interest in a career in mental health. Conclusion Irish pharmacy students have generally positive attitudes towards people with severe mental illness and provision of medicines optimisation services. Practical difficulties in conducting longitudinal research are challenging to overcome with low response rates to surveys limiting the generalisability of results. It is nonetheless encouraging that a significant proportion of our future pharmacists consider mental health care to be a potentially rewarding career option.