Improving Psychology Students’ Attitudes Toward People With Schizophrenia: A Quasi- Randomized Controlled Study.

Despite scientific evidence that the majority of People With Schizophrenia (PWS) have personal histories of
traumatic life events and adversities, their needs for psychological support often remain unmet. Poor availability
of non-pharmacological therapies in schizophrenia may be partly due to professionals’ attitudes toward people
diagnosed with this disorder. As future health professionals, psychology students represent a target population for
efforts to increase the probability that PWS will be offered effective psychological therapies. This quasirandomized
controlled study investigated the effect of an educational intervention, addressing common prejudices
via scientific evidence and pre-recorded audio-testimony from PWS, on the attitudes of psychology students
towards PWS. Students in their fifth year of a master’s degree in Psychology at the Second University of Naples,
Italy were randomly assigned to an experimental group – which attended two three-hour sessions a week apart -
– or to a control group. Compared to their baseline assessment, at one-month reassessment, the 76 educated
students endorsed more psychosocial causes and more of them recommended psychologists in the treatment of
schizophrenia. They were also more optimistic about recovery, less convinced that PWS are recognizable and
unpredictable and more convinced that treatments, pharmacological and psychological, are useful. No significant
changes were found, from baseline to one-month reassessment, in the 112 controls. At one-month reassessment,
educated students were more optimistic about recovery and less convinced that PWS are unpredictable than
controls. These findings suggest that psychology students’ attitudes toward PWS can be improved by training
initiatives including education and indirect contact with users.