Psychiatric assessment skills in physical and rehabilitation medicine residents

OBJECTIVE: To value the psychiatric clinical aptitude (CA) in physical medicine and rehabilitation residents (PMR). METHODS: An instrument of evaluation of the psychiatric clinical aptitude was built, with five summarized real clinical cases, with 120 items to respond, 60 with true answer and 60 with false. The instrument was validated by experts, three psychiatrists and two specialists in physical medicine and rehabilitation that coincided completely in 44 % of the answers and in 56 % four of the five experts. It was applied to all medical residents of this specialty (n = 16), the internal consistency of the instrument was measured by the test of Kuder-Richardson (formula 20) showing a coefficient of 0.85, the random response was calculated by the Pérez Padilla-Viniegra test, being of 20 (17 %). Comparisons among the groups with U of Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis were made. RESULTS: Degrade of CA in the whole sample was low and there were differences statistically significant in favor of the third year residents. CONCLUSIONS: The educational strategies in the psychiatry area do not enhance the development of the CA in this specialty.