According to Mukherjee et al (2013), UK psychiatry recruitment is ’in crisis”. Psychiatry training programmes are consistently under filled – fill-rate of just 66% to the Core Training Year 1 programme in 2014.

To investigate how attitudes towards psychiatry correlate with the likelihood of choosing a career in psychiatry.

Final year medical students completed an abridged version of the ATP-30 questionnaire, comprising 10 statements which were then rated on a scale of 1 (’strongly disagree”) to 5 (’strongly agree”). Students also rated from 1 to 5 their likelihood of choosing psychiatry. The mean ratings for each question were compared between students who might choose psychiatry (Group A: likelihood ratings 3-5) and students unlikely to choose psychiatry (Group B: likelihood ratings 1-2).

Of the 98 students who returned questionnaires just 3 gave likelihood ratings of 4 (’definitely decided to”) or 5 (’seriously considering”), while 72 gave ratings of 1 (’no way”) or 2 (’unlikely”). Group A were significantly more positive about the statements ’the problems of psychiatric patients are particularly interesting and challenging” (p= 0.02) and ’psychiatrists treat the whole patient, not just the disease” (p=0.02). Group A were also significantly more against the statements ’psychiatrists are often merely failed physicians” (p=0.03); ’psychiatry is unrewarding because treatment is lengthy and inconclusive” (p=0.001); and ’psychiatry is too inexact” (p=0.04).

While complex cases and a holistic approach may attract students towards psychiatry, deterring factors include the perceived low status of the specialty along with a feeling that treatments are poorly specific and lack scientific basis.