Training of primary health care medical officers in mental health care. Errors in clinical judgment before and after training.

This investigation examined the nature and frequency of errors in clinical judgment that were displayed by primary health care medical officers before and after short-term training in mental health care. Thirty-nine medical officers who underwent inservice training for 2 weeks were evaluated using standardized case vignettes. Before the training, doctors displayed a sizable percentage of major and minor errors, which dropped significantly following training.

Development of case vignettes to assess the mental health training of primary care medical officers.

This article reports the development of case vignettes as a method of assessing the short-term in-service training of primary care medical officers in mental health care. A pool of 18 case vignettes representing common psychiatric problems and a standard response sheet were written first. This was mailed to 45 psychiatrists for their comments.

Training primary care health workers in mental health care: evaluation of attitudes towards mental illness before and after training.

One hundred and fifty primary care paramedical health workers who underwent a short term training in mental health care were evaluated to understand their attitudes towards mental health before, and immediately after, the training course. The trainees showed a significant change in attitudes in the desirable direction towards different mental health problems. Baseline attitude of health workers was not related to age, sex, level of education or duration of their professional service.

Standardisation of multiple-choice questionnaire for evaluating medical officers' training in psychiatry.

This study reports the standardisation of a multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ) for evaluating the training of primary care physicians in psychiatry. An item pool of 104 multiple-choice questions of the 'single best response' type was written. This item pool along with an 'MCQ assessment sheet' was mailed to 90 psychiatrists with a request to evaluate the questionnaire.