Ethical competence and psychiatric and mental health nursing education. Why? What? How?

Nurse Educators' Pedagogical Approaches Addressing Student Nurses' Mental Health Care Competence: A Qualitative Study

Nurses' mental health care competence is vital for addressing the current mental health care crisis' demand for quality in mental health care and services. These challenges also involve educational institutions. In the mental health course of the bachelor's nursing curriculum, nurse educators face multiple tasks and challenges concerning preparing students for their clinical placement. This study aimed to explore and describe nurse educators' pedagogical approaches across three universities. The study applied a qualitative and descriptive design, and data were collected from individual qualitative interviews with 13 experienced nurse educators. A content analysis approach in lines with Graneheim and Lundman was used to analyse the data. The content analysis resulted in one theme and three categories, and each category was characterised by three subcategories. The theme intentionally preparing student nurses for mental health care competence served as an overarching theme describing the educators' overall reflections and descriptions. The three categories were: activating students for the mental health context; caring for students on a personal level; and supporting students in grasping the scope of nursing within the mental health context. These categories described the varieties and complexity of nurse educators' pedagogical approaches addressing student nurses' mental health care competence.

Strategies Used to Teach Professional Boundaries Psychiatric Nursing Education

Issues in understanding professional boundaries have been reported amongst student psychiatric nurses. Nursing students are at risk of crossing and violating professional boundaries as they are inexperienced in maintaining therapeutic relationships. Despite these challenges, there was a lack of literature regarding boundary instruction in psychiatric nursing education. Interpretative description was applied as method to answer: What strategies do psychiatric nurse educators utilize to teach professional boundaries to undergraduate students? Eleven educators and nine psychiatric nurses were interviewed. Data was analyzed using an inductive approach. Eight participants also attended a focus group to help refine analysis. Boundary instruction strategies included sharing stories, reflective activities, discussion in clinical settings, role modeling, and role play. Boundary instruction should be incorporated into psychiatric nursing curriculum in a deliberate manner to ensure students are exposed to the topic in meaningful ways throughout their academic career.

Peer Mentorship in Psychiatric Nursing Education: Preparation for Future Practice

BACKGROUND

Academic demands along with stressors inherent to daily life may be overwhelming for undergraduate psychiatric nursing students. Peer mentorship programs have been found to improve emotional well-being in students; however, little research is available regarding psychiatric nursing students' experiences.

METHOD

Hermeneutic phenomenology was used to answer the research question: "What are the lived experiences of mentors within an undergraduate psychiatric nursing peer mentorship program?" Nine undergraduate psychiatric nursing students with experience serving as a mentor were interviewed.

RESULTS

The participants expressed they gained important skills that are valued by the profession of psychiatric nursing. The themes identified included: support, empathy, the mentor-mentee relationship, active listening, and leadership.

CONCLUSION

Involvement in these programs may assist with fostering these skills in undergraduate psychiatric nursing students. Offering a mentorship program for undergraduate psychiatric nursing students has been demonstrated to be valuable. [J Nurs Educ. 2021;60(10):582-585.].