Background: Psychiatrists play a multifaceted and critical role in improving the lives of people with mental illness. However, despite how rewarding, important and thrilling a career in mental health is, there continues to remain a shortage of psychiatrists in Low-, Middle- and High-Income Countries. There has been resurgence in interest in improving the image of psychiatry over recent years and several initiatives have been launched to increase recruitment into the specialty at Sixth Form level in the UK.
Design: We conducted a single-arm, pre-post, comparison study with Sixth Form students at an inner-city school in London. Students were invited to complete a survey before and after exposure to an assembly on mental health that was delivered by an Expert by Personal and Professional Experience (EPPE). Our aims were to detect and measure if there were any changes in perceptions of psychiatry and if there was an increase in interest in pursuing this profession as a career in this group.
Results: 63 out of 123 participants completed the before and after survey (51% response rate). Following exposure to the assembly, there were statistically significant improvements between the pre- and post- intervention means for, "Psychiatry has a positive impact on peoples' lives" (p value <0.0001), "People with mental illness can achieve success and be the best at what they do" (p value <0.0001) and, "I would consider psychiatry as a career" (p value <0.0001).
Conclusion: Notwithstanding the limitations of this pilot study, our findings suggest that an assembly on mental health delivered by an EPPE (i.e. 'Wounded Healer') might be effective at increasing interest in psychiatry as a career at Sixth Form level. We suggest that assemblies on mental health and psychiatry be delivered by 'Wounded Healers' in schools and colleges nationwide to help drive recruitment into psychiatry.