Abstract
Evaluate how the medical school graduates are conducting towards psychiatric patients. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study, in which a structured questionnaire was applied to medical students in the sixth semester. 111 graduating medical students were evaluated, 55.9% female and 44.1% male, the average age was 25.3 years. In the study, there was no lower difference in the proportion of different responses to questions regarding the hospitalization of psychiatric patients; in the items that serve the students' aptitude to assist a mentally ill patient, there was a low frequency of “totally agree” responses when compared to the others. Most students chose to answer “totally disagree” to the item that refers to the care of psychiatric patients and, to the item that assesses the patient's individual ability to make decisions, most of the answers focused on “I have doubts” and “partly disagree”. Among academics, there is a knowledge of the need for better assistance to psychiatric patients, through the counseling of those responsible for forming the social environment of the mentally ill.