Abstract:

Mental health disorders are the third highest contributor to the burden of disease globally. Nurses are becoming increasingly exposed to psychiatric illness in all healthcare settings and are frequently involved in treating and managing mental health conditions along with medical illnesses. Institutions must educate baccalaureate nursing students to become competent in mental health care (Kunst, Mitchell, & Johnston, 2017). Teaching in the simulation labs at most colleges and universities benefits students’ knowledge of medically-based conditions and skills but often lacks dynamic case scenarios and teaching opportunities nurses will encounter on psychiatric units or in other psychiatric settings. Most undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students fear speaking to a client who has a mental illness. Lack of confidence, anticipatory anxiety, and fear were distorting student nurse perceptions of mental health clients, interfering with learning about this fascinating work, as well as restricting the emergence of empathy within the nursing role. Establishing a working relationship and collaboration with a hospital and its nursing staff is critical to laying the groundwork for potential ongoing simulation experiences in adequate spaces with nursing staff in numbers large enough to accommodate student class sizes average n= 30-40 students. Through collaborative efforts, a small team of experts designed and implemented a cutting-edge reality simulation experience at a local state psychiatric hospital for a class of senior mental health nursing students. This collaboration with practice partners, nurse educators and an interim Associate Dean transformed how educators in nursing should teach the necessary core competencies of mental health nursing to students. An entire floor at this state institution was transformed into a virtual simulation experience for these nursing students. The goal of these reality simulations was to decrease anxiety about mental health nursing and lessen the stigma of caring for the mentally ill. This was accomplished by exposing nursing students to “real life” psychiatric situations and emergencies in a safe and controlled setting at this state hospital. The major outcome of this collaboration effort was the partnership of nurse managers and university faculty in creating simulations that transformed how nursing students learned by shaping their attitudes, skills and beliefs about persons diagnosed with mental illness. Over the past seven years since beginning this partnership, 31 graduates of the university have been hired by the state hospital to work as staff nurses on inpatient psychiatric units.

Keywords:

Psychiatric simulations, mental health nursing, interdisciplinary nursing collaboration.