ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1635224
Factors influencing medical students in a lower-middle income country to consider psychiatry as a career option
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
- 2University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, Edmonton, Canada
- 3Lilian Osborn High School, Edmonton, Canada
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Objective: To assess and identify the environmental, curriculum, teaching related factors and preconception about psychiatry that influence medical students’ attitudes towards psychiatry careers after completing psychiatry rotations. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving fifth- and sixth-year medical students of four public medical schools in Ghana. Data was analyzed using chi-square test and logistic regression analysis. Results: Out of 1041 clinical year medical students from the four public medical schools in Ghana, 475 students completed survey forms and provided responses related to their preference for a psychiatry career following the completion of a clinical rotation, yielding a response rate of (45.63%). Medical students who were identified as female (OR = 1.55; 95% CI: 1.01–2.35), were in their sixth year (OR = 1.65; 95% CI: 1.06–2.58), had diaspora-based psychiatrists participate in their clinical training (OR = 1.7; 95% CI: 1.10–2.62), and had considered psychiatry careers before undertaking psychiatry clinical rotation (OR = 3.19; 95% CI: 1.73–5.87) were more likely to consider psychiatry as a future career after completing a psychiatric rotation, when compared to their respective counterparts. Conclusion: Diverse factors have affected students’ consideration of psychiatry as a future career. Health policy makers and health training institutions in low- and middle-income countries should consider designing programs that will impact positively on the preconceptions of medical students about psychiatry careers in addition reaching out to human resources abroad from within their nationals, particularly if these resources exist.
Keywords: LMIC, Psychiatry as a future career, Psychiatry clinical training, Medical students, diaspora
Received: 29 May 2025; Accepted: 02 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Agyapong, Shalaby and Agyapong-Opoku. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Vincent I.O. Agyapong, agyapong@ualberta.ca
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