Investigating the Compliance of the Curriculum Content of the Psychiatric Department of Medicine (Externship and Internship) with the Future Job Needs from the Perspective of General Practitioners

Introduction: General practitioners play a major role in the implementation of treatment programs for the mentally ill patients in hospitals and clinics. Also, graduates in any field are the most important and best groups who can express how the content of the curriculum fits their future job needs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the degree of adaptation of the curriculum content of the psychiatric department of medicine (externship and internship) with the future job needs of general practitioners. Methods: This analytical-cross-sectional study was performed on 109 general practitioners working in clinics, health care centers, hospitals, and private clinics in South Khorasan province in 2019, who were graduated between 2007 and 2017 and were selected by census method.  To collect data a researcher-made questionnaire appropriate to the courses of the psychiatric ward, approved by the Ministry of Health, was used. The validity and reliability  of the questionnaire was confirmed respectively by content validity and Cronbach's Alpha method (83%). Data were analyzed by using one-sample t-test and independent t-test through SPSS. The significance level of data was α = 0.05. Results: Based on the results, from the perspective of general practitioners, the average score of the courses (general psychiatry and mental health and common classification in psychiatry, history and symptomatology in psychiatry, sexual disorders in psychiatry, substance abuse, somatoform disorders , treatment (pharmaceutical and non-pharmacological), drug spirituality) was more than 1.5. (p <0.0001). Also, there was no significant difference between the mean score of adaptation of the content of the psychiatric curriculum content and the job needs of general practitioners based on gender (p=0.363). Conclusion: The curricula of the psychiatric department in terms of scientific awareness and theoretical knowledge as well as applied knowledge concerning  the identified needs were at a moderate level. It is necessary to provide conditions for the required skills and abilities and theoretical knowledge in this field to be applied and generalized to the practical situtations.