Undergraduate nursing students’ attitudes toward mental illness and mental health nursing

Historically, nurses have lacked recognition for the work they do, especially in the area of mental health. There is a shortage of qualified mental health nurses to meet the demand for services. Many rural areas in the United States have few or no mental health services to offer communities. Encouraging positive attitudes toward mental health nursing is an important step in the recruitment of new nurses into the specialty. This study used Colaizzi’s method of phenomenology to explore the beliefs held by undergraduate BSN students towards mental health nursing and how undergraduate nursing education affected those attitudes. The purpose of the research was to understand undergraduate nursing students’ attitudes toward mental health, to understand the impact that content and clinical experiences and experiences with non-mental health faculty have on attitudes toward mental health nursing, and to understand how undergraduate nursing education can contribute to the de-stigmatization of mental health nursing. Guided by Goffman’s (1963) stigma theory, 20 participants were interviewed. Data analysis revealed three major themes: a) student nurses had varied attitudes toward mental health nursing, b) students had varied understanding of mental illness and mental health nursing at the end of the course rotation and c) clinical experiences and teaching strategies produced attitudinal changes in undergraduate nursing students. The two subthemes extracted from the first theme were students attitudes ranged from favorable to unfavorable and attitudes were based on experience and exposure to mental illness and mental health nursing. Subthemes from the second theme included students did not comprehend content as presented and they compartmentalized illnesses as medical or mental. Subthemes from the third theme included students had concerns over loss of technical skills and they did not comprehend the role of the mental health nurse even after clinical experiences. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries