Achieving Full Scope of Practice Readiness Using Evidence for Psychotherapy Teaching in Web and Hybrid Approaches in Psychiatric Mental Health Advanced Practice Nursing Education

How PMHNP Program Directors Facilitate Psychotherapeutic Skill Acquisition

BACKGROUND

The use of psychotherapy has a long history within psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) practice. Underutilization of psychotherapy in practice has potentially led to a reduced emphasis in the PMHNP curriculum. To date, no national survey has solely evaluated how PMHNP programs ensure psychotherapy skill acquisition.

AIMS

Survey the PMHNP programs within the United States on how psychotherapy skill acquisition is achieved, including (a) psychotherapeutic curricular content; (b) psychotherapy related clinical practicum hours, including simulation and preceptor-delivered hours; and (c) student interest in psychotherapy skills.

METHOD

Three rounds of e-mail invitations were sent to all PMHNP programs within the United States. Descriptive statistics and reflective thematic analysis were used to examine survey content.

RESULTS

There were 39 (27%) respondents, representing the U.S. regions equally. The most common forms of psychotherapy taught were cognitive-behavioral and motivational interviewing. The content was most often delivered through a hybrid program (65.8%). Psychotherapy clinical hours most often used in psychology and social work were varied (0-720, SD 132.9) and were usually (63.89%) separate from other clinical hours. Qualitative responses focused on increased emphasis on the use of psychotherapy within PMHNP programs and the need to develop competency checklists for psychotherapy skill acquisition to use with simulation.

CONCLUSION

This survey reported on both similarities and differences in how PMHNP programs ensure student competency in the skill acquisition of psychotherapy. While this article focuses on what skills are needed in psychotherapy education, direction on how programs deliver this content to their students to ensure this skill will be retained in practice is a critical next step.

An Evaluation of an Online Training Platform for Teaching Positive Emotions for People With Schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

The dissemination of new interventions in clinical practice remains challenging. E-learning may provide wide access in various settings and allow tailored learning trajectories and an adapted training pace. This study evaluates an online platform to train professionals to lead the Positive Emotion Program for Schizophrenia (PEPS) for patients with anhedonia. This study aims to test the reception provided by clinicians to the platform and its perceived usefulness and investigate whether e-PEPS training improves knowledge about the facilitation of PEPS.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Participants were recruited through advertisements. All participants provided their informed consent on a registration form and completed two pre-test questionnaires, a knowledge test on negative symptoms in schizophrenia, learning strategies and the partnership relationship, and a test on the ability to savor pleasant moments. After the training, they completed the same questionnaire and an evaluation form of the training and its application in personal and professional life.

RESULTS

Two-hundred and ten participants were registered to participate into the study, 185 received the access to the platform, and 101 participants completed the training and the post-test assessments. Satisfaction with training was high. The results showed that the participants significantly improved their knowledge about PEPS and increased the skills taught in their personal repertoire after the training. The training allows most clinicians to plan to lead a PEPS group in the year following training.

DISCUSSION

As a result of this study, training has been improved and is now freely available to all interested clinicians.

Exploring Online Mentorship as a Potential Strategy to Enhance Postgraduate Mental Health Nursing Education through Online Delivery: A Review of the Literature

The value of mentorship to professional development in nursing education has been consistently demonstrated in the literature. The benefits for mental health nursing are particularly noted for attracting nursing students and new graduates into this area of practice. The proliferation of online delivery of mental health nursing programs poses particular issues in providing mentorship to students. Despite changes to the mode of educational delivery, the mentorship literature primarily addresses face-to-face processes. The aim of this paper is to present a review of the literature pertaining to online mentorship. A literature search of the CinAHL, Medline, ProQuest and Google Scholar databases was undertaken to identify relevant literature. Hand searches of reference lists were also conducted. The findings demonstrate the paucity of literature addressing this topic. Evaluation of online mentorship programs are particularly scarce, small scale and usually conducted at one site only. Few descriptions of the content and structure are provided meaning that program development cannot benefit from existing knowledge and expertise. There is an urgent need for online mentorship accompanied by rigorous and systematic evaluation frameworks to maximize the benefits of mentorship to an online environment.

Innovative Models in Mental Health Delivery Systems: Task Sharing Care with Non-specialist Providers to Close the Mental Health Treatment Gap

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Most people do not have access to adequate mental health care, and lack of skilled human resources is a major factor. We provide a narrative review of approaches to implementing task sharing-engaging non-specialist providers-to deliver mental health care.

RECENT FINDINGS

There is strong evidence both for the effectiveness of task sharing as a means of delivering care for a range of conditions across settings and for the effectiveness of non-specialist providers and health workers in delivering elements of culturally adapted psychosocial and psychological interventions for common and severe mental disorders. Key approaches to facilitate task sharing of care include balanced care, collaborative care, sustained training and supervision, use of trans-diagnostic interventions based on a dimensional approach to wellness and illness, and the use of emerging digital technologies. Non-specialist providers and health workers are well positioned to deliver evidence-based interventions for mental disorders, and a variety of delivery approaches can support, facilitate, and sustain this innovation. These approaches should be used, and evaluated, to increase access to mental health services.

Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing: Data-Driven Policy Platform for a Psychiatric Mental Health Care Workforce

OBJECTIVE

To describe the development of a data-driven policy platform for psychiatric nurses roles and outcomes to alleviate the current mental health crisis in the United States.

METHOD

Drawing on census data, statistical reports, and analysis of the current psychiatric mental health nursing (PMHN) workforce, a data-driven policy platform is designed to recruit, train, and prepare psychiatric nurses for addressing the nation's mental health crises.

RESULTS

As noted by the Institute of Medicine's 2010 & 2016 reports on the future of nursing, the largest available health care workforce is not being used effectively, particularly to address the nation's mental health care needs. The development of a data-driven platform provides direction for psychiatric nurses in developing the workforce to meet the national mental health crisis.

CONCLUSIONS

From education through practice and research, psychiatric-mental health nursing must build and share a data-driven, relationship-to-care platform emphasizing how PMHN care affects patient outcomes. Using a data-based platform to grow supportive public opinion, psychiatric mental health nursing can build a workforce to modify national accreditation standards and laws supporting data-driven PMHN care. The specialty profession must also seek to modify the nursing profession's attitude toward embracing data-driven platform of care relationships to psychiatric mental health outcomes.