Teaching methods
psychiatric
The intervention group was shown clips from three English-language movies subtitled in Chinese during the course, which served as the basis for explaining and analyzing mental symptoms. The showing of the clips and their discussion lasted two teaching hours (100 min). The films were selected because psychopathology was a central theme and either the film itself (A Beautiful Mind) or main actor(s) had received an Academy Award Oscar (Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant and Natalie Portman for Black Swan).We did not consider movies that the Chinese National Film Board had ruled could be viewed only by those 18 years and older. The movies were carefully reviewed by the investigators before the research began, and appropriate clips were selected that did not include excessive violence or eroticism. Psychopathological symptoms that were not illustrated in the clips, such as those related to attention, memory, intelligence, affection, volition and behavior, were taught in conventional seminars lasting another two teaching hours.The following three characters from three movies were analyzed: Teddy Daniels from Teddy in John in The ballerina Nina in The control group participated in conventional seminars on psychiatric symptomatology, lasting four teaching hours (200 min), in which instructors explained the same symptoms of psychopathology as emphasized in the intervention group, but involving the reading of relevant excerpts from the textbook To ensure consistency in teaching methods, two associate professors and one lecturer were trained in how to analyze the film characters before the study began. All instructors in this study had at least five years of experience teaching psychiatry.