A Missed Opportunity to Cultivate Positive Attitudes about Mental Health Recovery among Undergraduate Nursing Students – A Quasi-Experimental Controlled Study

Abstract

Introduction

Mental health recovery is a critical concept that needs to be thoroughly understood and supported by nurses. Undergraduate nurse educators have the opportunity to clarify misconceptions and cultivate positive recovery attitudes.

Aim

To assess the impact of an undergraduate nursing course on attitudes toward mental health recovery and the relationship between recovery attitudes and prejudice toward those who experience a mental illness.

Methods

A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest, nonequivalent-control group study was conducted using a sample of undergraduate nursing students in New York City (N = 126). The intervention group was assigned to an undergraduate mental health nursing course and the control group to a pediatric/maternal health nursing course. Attitudes toward mental health recovery and prejudice were measured at the beginning and end of the semester. Two-way mixed analyses of variance were used to determine the differences in students’ attitudes. Pearson product-moment correlation analyses were used to assess the relationship between prejudice toward people who experience a mental illness and attitudes toward recovery.

Results

The mental health nursing course had no measurable impact on students’ recovery attitudes. However, there was a moderate-to-strong inverse relationship between recovery attitudes and prejudice toward those who experience a general mental illness (r = −0.54), depression (r = −0.60), or schizophrenia (r = −0.43).

Conclusions

Curriculum reform is needed to optimize the impact of undergraduate education on students’ attitudes. Possible changes include a more holistic approach to mental health that does not over accentuate the biomedical model, the use of nontraditional clinical sites that provide students an opportunity to interact with those further along in their recovery, and the inclusion of those in recovery in curriculum development. As there was a moderate-to-strong inverse relationship between recovery attitudes and prejudice, educational interventions that positively impact one may also impact the other. Further research is needed to investigate if the relationship is causal.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Michele L. Roberts, and Dr. Ann Marie P. Mauro for scholarly guidance in the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no competing interests to declare. The authors confirm that all authors meet ICMJE criteria for authorship credit (www.icmje.org).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.