Background: Studies detailing psychiatry residents attitudes toward psychotherapy training are scant with nothing reported on Saudi psychiatric residents. We aimed to evaluate psychiatric residents attitudes towards their training program specifically related to learning psychotherapy and to find out factors fashioning these attitudes.
Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted on all psychiatric residents of year 1 to 4 enrolled in the joint residency program across three major cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. From 134 residents, data was collected after consent, anonymously & confidentially through a validated self-administered questionnaire, which included demographic data and a scale that has been used in two previous studies to examine attitudes on psychotherapy training.
Results: With a response rate of 60% (80 out of 134 psychiatry residents), an overwhelming majority (92%) of our cohort considered psychotherapy training resources to not be a burden. Nevertheless, three-quarters of our residents (73.75%) had concerns with the program not providing high-quality psychotherapy training, with more than half of our cohort (52.5%) disagreeing that the psychotherapy program helps them become a better
psychotherapist. Although the majority of the residents acknowledged psychotherapy mentors influence as positive, only 11% viewed the quality of supervision to be excellent. Across the years in training and various psychotherapy aspects, our residents perceived their competence in neutral to negative terms.
Conclusion: Our data depicts the need for raising standards & addressing the quality and quantity of training resources dedicated to psychotherapy in residency program across the kingdom.
Key words: Psychotherapy, psychiatry, residency, post-graduate training, attitude
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