Intention to work with individuals with dual diagnosis: testing the theory of planned behavior among students from various professions

ADAPTATION AND TESTING OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY ATTITUDES IN NURSING CARE INSTRUMENT

Background and Purpose: Individuals with developmental disability (DD) often experience poor health outcomes, potentiated by healthcare inequities. Nurses have the potential to reduce these inequities through the quality of care provided. The quality of care provided by nursing students, the future generation of nurses, is affected by the attitudes of their clinical nursing faculty. The purpose of this study was to adapt and test an instrument to specifically measure the attitudes of clinical nursing faculty toward providing care to people with DD. Methods: The Disability Attitudes in Health Care (DAHC) instrument was adapted to create the new Developmental Disability Attitudes in Nursing Care (DDANC) instrument. Results: Content experts reviewed the DDANC for content validity (CVI = 0.88), followed by testing for internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.7). The study respondents had overall positive attitudes toward the care of people with DD. Conclusions: The DDANC is an acceptably valid and reliable instrument to assess attitudes of clinical nursing faculty toward providing care to people with DD.

Professional preference for mental illness: The role of contact, empathy, and stigma in Spanish Social Work undergraduates

The treatment of the mentally ill people is a challenge across the world, and different professionals, such as doctors, social workers, psychologists, or nurses, take care of this group. Nonetheless, mental health is not a vocational sector preferred by students and professionals of many of these careers. Research has proposed that professional preference for a patient group would be positively influenced by intergroup contact (quantity and quality) and empathy (perspective-taking), and negatively associated with intergroup anxiety and social distance. However, the evidence testing this proposal was partial and mainly referring to other patient groups such as minorities or immigrants. The major aim of this cross-sectional study was to clarify two research questions referring to mentally ill persons: Do contact and empathy protect undergraduates from intergroup anxiety and social distance and promote professional preference? Do intergroup anxiety and social distance predict professional preference and mediate the influence of contact and empathy in professional preference? A convenience sample of 409 Social Work undergraduates (81% females) from three Spanish universities completed a questionnaire between February and June 2020. Concerning direct relationships, the structural equation model showed that the quantity of contact only predicted intergroup anxiety negatively; quality of contact and empathy negatively predicted intergroup anxiety and social distance; intergroup anxiety positively predicted social distance; intergroup anxiety and social distance negatively predicted professional preference. Concerning mediated relationships, the influence of quality of contact and empathy on social distance was mediated by intergroup anxiety; social distance mediated the relationship of intergroup anxiety with professional preference; both anxiety and distance mediated the influence of quality of contact and empathy in professional preference. These results encourage interventions aimed at enhancing professional preference for mental illness by improving contact, knowledge, and empathy and reducing stigma in students and workers from diverse mental health careers.

Perceptions towards disability among social work students in Israel: Development and validation of a new scale

Over the last decades, the disability movement has been advocating for a paradigmatic shift in how disability is perceived and managed: from a medical or individual perspective focusing on the person's body and mind to a social perspective emphasizing the context and barriers of disability. However, we still know little about the perceptions of helping professionals, particularly social workers who work closely with disabled people. Thus, the aim of the current study is to develop and validate a scale-Perceptions Toward Disability Scale (PTDS)-to measure how social workers view disability: as an individual or social category. This paper describes the three phases of the scale's construction. First, scale items were formulated and its content validity was examined. Next, a pilot of 30 social workers completed a questionnaire and an initial exploratory factor analysis was conducted. In the third and main phase, the final draft was completed in 2016 by 565 Israeli social work students to assess its psychometric properties. Both exploratory and confirmatory factorial validity and discriminant validity analyses were conducted. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis revealed two distinct factors: an individual perspective of disability comprised of eight items (α = 0.77) and a social perspective of disability comprised of ten (α = 0.66). Subsequent analyses supported the scale's discriminant validity as indicated by the lack of an association between the Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP) and the social model subscale (r = .13, p = .19) and by the weak negative relation with the individual model subscale (r = -.25, p = .01). These findings show that the PTDS possesses promising construct validity and provide support for its utility. This easy-to-administer instrument offers several practical benefits and can serve as a framework for further empirical research regarding social work practice with disabled people.

Nursing Students' Attitudes and Intention to Work with Mentally Ill Patients Before and After a Planned Intervention

OBJECTIVES

The authors examined changes in attitudes and intention to work with mentally ill patients (treat, specialize, or work in the field) among nursing students after a planned intervention consisting of a mental health course.

METHODS

Data were collected before and after a planned intervention. The nature of the intervention was educational, for third year undergraduate nursing students. The core intervention included lectures on mental illness, encounters with people coping with mental illness, simulations, and a film on coping with mental illness. Behavioral intention to work with mentally ill patients and three dimensions of nursing students' attitudes (perceived functional characteristics, perceived danger, and value diminution of mentally ill patients) were measured before and after the intervention. The post-intervention impact of the intervention on participants' attitudes and behavioral intention was measured.

RESULTS

One hundred and one undergraduate third year nursing students studying at four nursing schools in Israel participated in the study. The planned intervention improved the students' attitudes towards mentally ill patients but did not improve their intention of working with them. Post-intervention, older and less religious students had more intention to work with mentally ill patients. Moreover, older and Jewish students held better attitudes towards the functional characteristics of mentally ill patients. Being older was also correlated with the perception of mentally ill patients as less dangerous and male students ascribed to them more value diminution.

CONCLUSIONS

Students' attitudes towards mentally ill patients and their behavioral intention to work in the psychiatry field should be addressed during the initial training and in continuing education. Teaching methods should include theoretical learning on multicultural mental health practice concurrently with clinical placements.

Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to examine enrolled nursing students' intention to care for patients with alcohol dependence: A survey study

BACKGROUND

Nurses are often the first point of contact for patients hospitalized due to alcohol-related causes. Alcohol dependence is highly stigmatized and as a result healthcare professionals often have low behavioural intentions, meaning low willingness to care for these patients. This can have a direct influence on quality of care.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to explore enrolled nursing students' intention to care for patients with alcohol dependence and the antecedents, preliminary factors, that predict this within the Theory of Planned Behaviour; specifically attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy and controllability.

DESIGN

The study was a cross-sectional survey using the Theory of Planned Behaviour.

SETTING

Two Technical and Further Education South Australia campuses across metropolitan Adelaide.

PARTICIPANTS

n=86 enrolled nursing students completed the survey (62% response rate).

METHODS

Enrolled nursing students' intention, attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy and controllability were measured using a Theory of Planned Behaviour Questionnaire. The Short Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Perception Questionnaire investigated attitudes in more detail and a short knowledge scale assessed alcohol-related knowledge.

RESULTS

Subjective norms and attitudes had a significant, positive effect on intention to care within the final model, accounting for 22.6% of the variance, F2,83=12.12, p<0.001. Subjective norms were the strongest predictor. External factors such as age, previous alcohol training and alcohol-related knowledge held direct paths to antecedents of intention.

CONCLUSIONS

Subjective norms were the strongest predictor of intention to care for patients with alcohol dependence, followed by attitudes. The study provides an understanding of enrolled nursing students' intention to care for alcohol dependent patients. These findings can assist in developing tailored alcohol training for students, to increase attitudes and foster behavioural change, in order to improve the quality of care for these patients.