Improving community well being by rethinking mental health nursing education

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According to Board of Nursing regulations, nursing students are required to take a course that presents didactic as well as clinical learning experiences in mental health/mental illness. The course is often an individual course with titles such as psychosocial well-being, mental health nursing or psychiatric nursing. The typical response of most students to the course is one of anxiety, fear and general dislike of the topic.  Most often this response is due, in part, to the self and family examination that occurs as material in the course is presented or a perception that the course is not equally as important as other courses.  Students want to focus their attention on "important" items such as critical care, pharmacology or other topics in the nursing education arena.  Thus, the nursing faculty member has a daunting task in presentation of this material.  How does this related to mental health well being? It is my belief that the first step in improving community mental health wellbeing begins with education.  This education involves the public, private and professional sector.  If we can get more nursing students interested in the field, or at best, involved in meeting the mental health needs of any patient for which they provide care, community wellness will also be improved.  To achieve improvement in the presentation of the course and its clinical experiences, this past summer Dr. Sapp has spent countless hours in revising the present mental health course.  She has found many new facilities that are welcoming students to enhance the students knowledge of those things available in the community to improve mental health well being. Within this revision she has also discovered the availability of learning enhancements that are not a part of our present budget. This purpose of this nomination is to complete the project of improving the course, while at the same time increasing the students positive perception of the course. A portion of the project will assist with the development of additional learning materials, including the use clinical scenarios to be used with students in the campus lab.  These scenarios would allow the evaluation of student responses (one on one) while being observed inconspicuously by faculty.  The scenarios are videotaped and following the scenario, the faculty and student debrief and the faculty member is able to provide guidance in real time to facilitate improvements in the student-client interactions. In addition, Dr. Sapp has found software for purchase that provides students with the ability to interact with "clients" through video interaction and have these reviewed between student and faculty.  In summary, this project will allow for a more positive perception of students to mental health and will allow them to improve their education and interaction with all clients as they provide nursing care both now and in the future.