Table 2 Psychological Medicine and Human Development (PMHD) lecture content and practical skills reported by Year 2 James Cook University medical students as ‘being useful’ on their 4-week rural clinical placement (data derived from open-ended question)
Lecture content | Number of students who reported this being a useful aspect of PMHD (including % of the 97 students whom responded to this question) |
1) Assessing mental illness; including MSE, mini-MSE and ‘A SAD WISH’ mnemonic | 49 (51%) |
2) General information on mental health (‘all was relevant’) | 20 (21%) |
3) Depression, loss and grief | 21 (22%) |
4) Interviewing mental health patients; e.g., how to approach the topic, history-taking, communication, talking to family | 15 (15%) |
5) Anxiety | 10 (10%) |
6) Lifespan development in relation to youth mental health | 10 (10%) |
7) Personality disorders; e.g., borderline personality disorder | 8 (8%) |
8) Managing mental illness; e.g., intervention strategies, care plans, medications | 7 (7%) |
9) Suicide prevention | 5 (5%) |
10) Elder health; e.g., dementia | 4 (4%) |
11) Psychoses; e.g., schizophrenia | 4 (4%) |
12) PTSD | 3 (3%) |
Practical skills | Number of students whom reported this being a useful aspect of PMHD (including % of the 100 students whom responded to this question) |
1) How to undertake a MSE or mini-MSE; including ‘A SAD WISH’ and other mnemonics for interviewing patients with depression (appetite, sleep, affect, diurnal variation, weight, interests, suicidal thinking, hopelessness) | 89 (89%) |
2) Interviewing skills | 20 (20%) |
3) How to identify patients with a mental illness | 5 (5%) |
4) Suicide awareness, talking about suicide, and assessing patients with suicidal thoughts | 4 (4%) |