The study is assessing the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of the different categories of medical professionals towards the psychiatric patients.

The transversal descriptive study was developed in the hospitals from two cities of Romania: Bucharest and Targoviste. We have studied the opinions about patients with mental disorders of 8 groups of medical professionals: psychiatrists, medical doctors, trainees from psychiatry and from other medical specialities, nurses from psychiatry and from other medical specialities, medical students and student nurses. We have conceived an anonymous self-administered questionnaire with 18 items concerning knowledge, attitudes, affects and actions of the medical professionals toward people with a psychiatric disorder.

From the 450 medical professionals that were asked to complete the questionnaire, 379 returned the questionnaire completed. The comparison between the eight groups of medical professionals showed that the clinical experience is a differentiating factor in the opinions about the cognitions, affects and behaviours towards psychiatric patients. The psychiatric specialists and trainees demonstrated a more tolerant attitude towards the patients with mental disorders. The knowledge about the psychiatric illness had positive correlations with the tolerance in attitude and behavior, apart from the medical category of the respondents.

Based on the fact that the modification of the cognitions influences the attitude and behavior, the stigma-reducing campaigns between medical professionals should have the main objective of informing about the psychiatric illness and patients.