Home Medicine Medical student perceptions of psychiatric conditions and the impact of stigmatizing language
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Medical student perceptions of psychiatric conditions and the impact of stigmatizing language

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Journal of Osteopathic Medicine
From the journal Journal of Osteopathic Medicine Volume 125 Issue 9

Abstract

Context

Mental health conditions have been subject to significant societal stigma, which impacts the self-perception of people with mental illness and can impact their decision to seek treatment. General practitioners in the United States report overall negative attitudes toward people with severe mental illness; however, there are few studies into the beliefs of medical students on people with mental illnesses as well as the impact of stigmatizing language on these beliefs.

Objectives

The objectives of this survey were to evaluate the impact of stigmatizing language on medical students’ responses to case presentations of mental illnesses, and to determine how these perceptions vary across the course of medical education.

Methods

We conducted an online survey wherein medical student participants reviewed psychiatric case vignettes, which varied in their use of either person-centered language (PCL) or stigmatizing language. All current students at the authors’ institution were sent the survey link via email. Participants rated the case for symptom severity, their likelihood to recommend hospitalization, their level of comfort and safety when interviewing the patient, the trustworthiness of the patient’s report, and the likelihood that the condition would improve over the next year. For analysis, these responses were summed to yield a Student Perception Index Score from 1 to 60, with 60 being the “most stigmatizing” perspective (i.e., lowest comfort, most likely to hospitalize, etc.).

Results

There were 87 total respondents, of which 44 answered the Stigmatizing vignettes and 43 answered the PCL vignettes, with roughly even respondents per year in school. Overall, there was not a significant difference between the PCL and stigmatizing language versions (p=0.73 for the major depression case; p=0.29 for the schizophrenia case). However, compared to first-year medical students, third-year students had significantly higher Student Perception Index Scores for the stigmatizing depression case (p=0.002), and fourth-year students had significantly higher stigma scores for the PCL depression case (p=0.02).

Conclusions

Although there was no overall difference between the average Index Scores for the PCL and stigmatizing versions of the case presentations, significant differences in the Index Scores of certain presentations for students undergoing clinical education indicate that some targeted education on mental health stigma may be beneficial for third- and fourth-year medical students. Teaching empathetic approaches to patients with mental illness, regardless of whether their presentation was “stigmatizing,” emphasizes the holistic care expected through the osteopathic tenet describing the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit.

Keywords: medical student mental health; medical student stigma; mental health stigma; stigmatizing language

Mental health conditions have been subject to significant societal stigma. People with mental illnesses often fear or experience exclusion and prejudice based on their condition [1]. Stigma largely envelopes societal perceptions of mental illness, with prominent use of labels such as “crazy,” “psycho,” or “weak” [2]. This has caused people who experience symptoms of psychiatric conditions to delay or avoid treatment of their conditions, which can lead to a worsened prognosis [3], [4], [5].

These stigmatized preconceptions do not end when one enrolls in medical school. A study of Tunisian medical students and residents found that fourth-year medical students had the most positive view of people with mental illnesses, compared to students from earlier years (measured with the Mental Illness: Clinician Attitudes [MICA]) [6],7]. Multinational studies have shown that medical students in higher-income countries, and female medical students, report lower MICA scores (i.e., less stigmatized) [8]. A meta-analysis of 22 studies analyzing stigmatizing beliefs among medical students before and after psychiatry clerkship found a significant reduction in overall stigmatized beliefs and attitudes [9]. In general, direct social contact with people with mental illness was associated with a decreased level of stigma among healthcare providers [10]. A scoping review conducted by Stone et al. [11] reports that general medical clinicians, including primary care physicians and general hospitalists, hold more negative attitudes toward individuals with severe mental illness compared to mental health providers. This indicates the need for further education on mental healthcare and the reduction of mental health stigma among physicians.

Although psychological studies in the United States were well established by the late 19th century [12], incorporating mental health in medical education was slower to develop. In 1913, only 4 of 85 medical schools surveyed included a course in normal psychology [13]. Over a century later, psychiatric education in medical school still faces criticism, as national guidelines remain slow to incorporate educational innovations for psychiatry such as standardized patients [14]. Furthermore, despite decades of psychiatric education in medical schools, studies continue to reveal connections between stigma toward mental illness among physicians and poor medical treatment and outcomes [2], 15]. Surveys among medical students have found that being female and having personal experience with mental illness (i.e., personally engaging in mental health treatment, or mental disorders among family or friends) were associated with significantly reduced stigma [16], 17]. Direct contact with individuals with mental disorders has proven more effective in reducing stigma, compared to traditional lectures [10]. Although these studies investigate the role of medical education on student attitudes toward mental illness, there are – to our knowledge – no studies that investigate the impact of stigmatizing language on student perceptions of mental disorders.

Given the impact of stigma on mental health treatment, the primary objectives of this study are to investigate medical student’s perceptions of individuals with mental health complaints, by the type of language utilized in the presentation. The secondary objective is to observe how these perceptions vary throughout psychiatric education.

Methods

General procedure

The questionnaire and consent materials were approved by the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (IRB; 2024011-OSU-CHS). All medical students (years 1–4) were emailed a study participation request with a survey link, and reminder messages were sent approximately 6 and 10 weeks later. The survey was first emailed in February 2024. At this time, no first-year students had completed the didactic psychiatry course, whereas all second-, third-, and fourth-year students had completed the course. Further, no first- or second-year students had completed their psychiatry clinical rotation, whereas approximately 75 % of third-year and all fourth-year students had. Study data were collected and managed utilizing the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) electronic data capture tool [18], 19]. Assignment of case Version A (stigmatizing language) or Version B (person-centered language [PCL]) of a patient vignette was based on a virtual “coin-flip” question, with “heads” assigning Version A and “tails” assigning Version B. The case assignment convention was then switched after the first round of responses to balance the number of responses per version, because participants were preferentially selecting the “heads” response. This coin-flip was made as a question within the form, rather than automatic, due to a limitation in the survey software in allowing a randomized survey with a single survey link.

Participants

The survey participants were medical students at Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (OSU-COM), across all years of medical education: OMS-I (Osteopathic Medical Student, 1 first year) through OMS-IV. The total number of students who were sent the survey link was 668.

Measures

The participants completed a demographics form, which included age, race/ethnicity, gender, year in school, and current specialty choice. They proceeded to a case vignette of either Version A (stigmatizing language) or Version B (PCL), determined by a coin-flip question as previously mentioned. Case vignettes were created of a patient presenting for treatment for symptoms related to either major depressive disorder or schizophrenia. The cases were written with the intention for the “correct” answers (i.e., severity, whether to hospitalize) to be ambiguous, signaling patient distress while excluding clear indications for hospitalization. Each case had two versions, one written with stigmatizing phrasing of the patient and the other with PCL phrasing. The first paragraph of each case contains the history of the present illness (HPI), and the second describes the patient’s history. Because one of the evaluation questions asks about the trustworthiness of the history, the second paragraph was kept constant across versions (i.e., not changed between stigmatizing to PCL language). See Figure 1 for a case example.

Figure 1: Schizophrenia case presentation demonstrating the differences in case versions. Note: stigmatizing vs. person-centered language (PCL) differences are bolded here for emphasis (not included in the participant version).
Figure 1:

Schizophrenia case presentation demonstrating the differences in case versions. Note: stigmatizing vs. person-centered language (PCL) differences are bolded here for emphasis (not included in the participant version).

After reading the vignette, participants then rated their likeliness to recommend hospitalizing the patient, how much they trust the patient’s history, how safe they would feel interviewing the patient, how comfortable they would feel interviewing the patient, how severe they think the patient’s condition is, and how likely the patient would be to improve over the next year.

Statistical analysis

To compare responses between groups, the answers to the cases were calibrated such that “1” represented the least stigmatized view and “10” represented the most stigmatized view – yielding a summed Student Perception “Index Score” from 6 to 60. For questions that utilized a Likert scale (e.g., “very uncomfortable to very comfortable”), the answers were converted to numbers (1–5) and doubled (2–10) such that they were weighed the same as other questions. The questions were combined into an Index Score due to the low sample size to better evaluate the overall differences in attitudes between the groups. The Mean Index Scores were compared across diagnosis (depression, schizophrenia), version (stigmatizing, PCL), and compared variables. Statistical differences were assessed for significance utilizing t tests. Alpha was set at 0.05 for all analyses, which were conducted in Stata 16.1 (Statcorp, LLC, College Station, TX).

Results

Of the 122 surveys opened, 87 (71 %) completed all of the fields. Of these, 44 received Version A (stigmatizing), and 43 received Version B (PCL). The breakdown of case versions responded by year-in-school is provided in Supplementary Table 1. With an overall student enrollment of 668, the survey was opened by 18.2 % and completed by 13.0 % of the survey recipients. The majority of our participants were White/Caucasian (78.2 %), non-Hispanic (92.0 %), female (63.2 %), and interested in a primary care residency (excluding psychiatry; 65.5 %); also, a plurality was aged 23–25 (48.3 %). The analysis found no significant demographic differences in the coin-flip assignment of individuals to either the stigmatizing or PCL versions (p=0.097–0.713).

There was no statistically significant difference in mean Student Perception Index Scores between the PCL and Stigmatizing versions of the depression (p=0.73) and schizophrenia (p=0.29) case vignettes. The Index Score from the OMS-I’s responses was chosen as the reference group within each case and version to compare between the years in medical school. For the PCL version, the average Index Score for the reference OMS-I group was 35.5 (standard error [SE] 4.6) for the depression case and 37.1 (SE 5.1) for the schizophrenia case (Table 1). Compared to this group, OMS-IVs had significantly higher Index Scores for depression (p=0.02) but not schizophrenia (p=0.19). For the stigmatizing version, the average Index Score in the OMS-I reference groups was 34.7 (SE 3.31) in the depression case and 37.1 (SE 4.4) in the schizophrenia case. Compared to this group, OMS-IIIs reported significantly higher Index Scores for the depression scenario (p=0.002) but not for the schizophrenia scenario (p=0.98). No other version and OMS group’s Index Scores significantly differed from the reference OMS-I group.

Table 1:

The average index scores of survey respondents by case version (PCL vs. stigmatizing), diagnosis, and year in medical school.

Group Index score, M (SE) Coef (SE) 95 % CI (low, high) t, p-Value
PCL
 Depression presentation
  OMS 1 35.5 (4.57) [ref]
  OMS 2 36.83 (4.22) 1.33 (2.45) −3.64, 6.3 0.54, 0.59
  OMS 3 39.42 (5.57) 3.92 (1.98) −0.09, 7.92 1.98, 0.06
  OMS 4 40.7 (5.38) 5.2 (2.08) 0.98, 9.42 2.5, 0.02
 Schizophrenia presentation
  OMS 1 37.07 (5.12) [ref]
  OMS 2 33.83 (6.05) −3.24 (2.77) −8.84, 2.36 −1.17, 0.25
  OMS 3 41.25 (6.52) 4.18 (2.23) −0.34, 8.69 1.87, 0.07
  OMS 4 40.2 (5.05) 3.13 (2.35) −1.62, 7.88 1.33, 0.19
Stigmatizing
 Depression presentation
  OMS 1 34.67 (3.31) [ref]
  OMS 2 38.91 (4.48) 4.24 (2.32) −0.45, 8.94 1.83, 0.08
  OMS 3 43 (5.94) 8.33 (2.45) 3.37, 13.3 3.4, 0.002
  OMS 4 38.5 (7.96) 3.83 (2.38) −0.98, 8.65 1.61, 0.12
 Schizophrenia presentation
  OMS 1 37.08 (4.41) [ref]
  OMS 2 37.25 (5.34) 0.17 (2.29) −4.45, 4.8 0.08, 0.94
  OMS 3 37 (6.59) −0.08 (2.57) −5.27, 5.11 −0.03, 0.98
  OMS 4 37.6 (6.83) 0.52 (2.4) −4.33, 5.38 0.22, 0.83

  1. CI, confidence interval; Coef, coefficient; M, mean; OMS, osteopathic medical student; PCL, person-centered language; SE, standard error.

Discussion

Overall, the case vignette Index Scores between respondents for the PCL and stigmatizing language versions were not statistically different. However, there were some interesting differences between medical students across training levels. With the first-year medical students’ Index Score as a reference, both OMS-IVs with the PCL version and OMS-IIIs with the stigmatizing version had significantly higher Perception Index Scores in the depression presentation but not in the schizophrenia presentation.

Stigmatizing language encompasses negative labels, stereotypes, or judgments toward certain groups of people [20]. Some labels have originated in the medical field (e.g., psychotic, schizophrenic), although they have garnered a negative connotation in society and therefore may be considered stigmatized. Previous studies have demonstrated that simply changing the phrasing of a patient model can impact a clinician’s attitude toward that patient. For instance, clinicians were more likely to say that a patient was personally responsible and worthy of punitive measures when described as a “substance abuser” compared to someone with “substance use disorder” [21]. Stigmatizing language in a patient note was also associated with more negative attitudes and less aggressive treatment of pain [22]. In general, negative attitudes toward patients with mental illness have been associated with poor clinical decision-making [11].

OMS-III’s were the only group that had significantly higher Index Scores when presented with the stigmatizing version of a person with depression. A previous meta-analytical study found significantly reduced stigma among medical students toward people with mental illness following their psychiatry clerkship [9]. A study that analyzed discrete MICA questions before and after clerkship, however, found that despite an overall decrease in average scores, some discrete questions in their sample remained neutral or were associated with worse attitudes [23], indicating that clinical experience has a mixed impact on student perceptions of mental illness. Our questions focusing on student decision-making and comfort, rather than overall attitudes toward mental illness, may have contributed to the significant results in the clinical education years. Third-year medical students are beginning clinical rotations after classroom education for the first 2 years. Previous researchers have suggested that students in the new clinical environment may have different levels of empathy and perceived knowledge than their senior peers, reporting discomfort with “complex clinical scenarios” [24]. For instance, a survey of third-year medical students revealed that only 61.9 % of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the prompt of feeling comfortable addressing mental health or substance use issues [25]. The students’ training location in their third-year clerkship may also impact their attitudes following the experience. A 2023 study of medical students before and after their older-adult clerkship found that those who worked in assisted-living facilities reported higher (more empathetic) on the Geriatrics Attitudes Scale [26]. To our knowledge, no other studies have investigated medical students’ susceptibility to stigmatizing language; however, our results and the previous studies on empathy suggest that students in their first clinical experiences may be influenced by stigmatizing phrasing. However, this finding was not demonstrated in the case of a person with schizophrenia. Interestingly, OMS-IVs with the PCL version of depression also had significantly higher Index Scores, possibly related to more influence of the medicalized language.

Implications and recommendations

Our results demonstrated that medical students in the clinical years of their education had varying Student Perception Index Scores for the depression case presentation. The significant results being limited to the vignette of depression may indicate a connection between a student’s personal experience with a mental health condition and the impact of stigmatizing language. Although over a quarter of medical students experience depression [27], students’ understanding of psychosis may be limited to clinical or medical contexts. However, there does not seem to be any current research on this connection. Overall, previous research has reported that primary care physicians and residents report low levels of comfort in treating mental health disorders [28], 29]. However, little research has been conducted regarding medical student comfort with psychiatric conditions. Still, training with a clinical decision support tool (CDST) for psychiatric treatments, developed at Oxford [30], has demonstrated significant improvement in medical student confidence in treating mental disorders [28]. An additional study on a case-based workshop on opioid use disorder showed significant improvements in medical student knowledge on the treatment, as well as decreased stigmatizing attitudes toward people with OUD [31]. A World Health Organization (WHO)-sponsored program in Nepal found significant improvement in clinical competency and comfort in treating mental illnesses with an educational program that included stigma “myth-busting” and hearing directly from people with mental health conditions [32]. Implementing a didactic session during a medical student’s psychiatric clinical rotation, which discusses best practices and provides support tools for psychiatric care – inspired by these evidence-based programs – could improve their comfort and knowledge in treating people with mental health conditions. Training future physicians with a holistic approach to people with psychiatric conditions emphasizes the unity of a person’s mind, body, and spirit in their overall health. Osteopathic institutions should strive to expose students to the previously mentioned programs that foster compassionate and person-centered care.

Limitations and future research

Our overall sample size of 87 completed surveys was relatively small, leading to wider confidence intervals. However, the analysis of subcategories of respondents (e.g., OMS year by diagnosis) still resulted in significant results. Furthermore, our survey only sought to reach students from OSU-COM, and thus only representing the effects of medical education from a single program. This survey was voluntary, and students who opted to participate did so by following a link in their email. This may have resulted in self-selection bias, because students who opted to take the survey may have had generally positive feelings toward mental illness. Expanding the survey to other programs, and supplementing results with qualitative interviews with medical students, could offer a more complete picture of the impact of stigmatizing language for medical students. Furthermore, including a greater contrast between the stigmatizing and person-centered case versions (rather than replacing only discrete words and phrases), and utilizing evidence-based screening tools such as the Clinicians’ Attitudes Scale [6], may better identify a difference in medical students’ perceptions between cases, if such a difference exists. Although our research demonstrated minor differences in medical student perceptions of people with depression during clinical education, further research is needed to determine the clinical impact of these differences.

Conclusions

Our survey revealed no significant overall difference in student attitudes and medical suggestions for patients based on a stigmatizing or person-centered presentation. However, compared to first-year students, third-year students with the stigmatizing presentations and fourth-year students with the person-centered presentations of a major depressive disorder case reported significantly higher Index Scores, based on a compilation of questions assessing safety, student discomfort, recommended hospitalization, and anticipation of poor outcomes. Variance in these Index Scores through years of clinical education indicates that medical students may benefit from targeted didactic education in their psychiatric clinical rotation on stigma reduction and the best practices for treatment.

Corresponding author: Zach Monahan, MS, Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine at Cherokee Nation, 19500 E Ross Street, Tahlequah, OK 74464, USA, E-mail:

  1. Research ethics: The study procedure was approved by the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (2024011-OSU-CHS).

  2. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  3. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.

  5. Conflict of interest: None declared.

  6. Research funding: None declared.

  7. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/jom-2024-0263).

Received: 2024-12-23
Accepted: 2025-04-07
Published Online: 2025-05-01

© 2025 the author(s), published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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https://doi.org/10.1515/jom-2024-0263
Keywords for this article
medical student mental health; medical student stigma; mental health stigma; stigmatizing language
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