“But I’m not going to be a mental health nurse”: nursing students’ perceptions of the influence of experts by experience on their attitudes to mental health nursing

Abstract

Background

Mental health nursing skills and knowledge are vital for the provision of high-quality healthcare across all settings. Negative attitudes of nurses, towards both mental illness and mental health nursing as a profession, limit recognition of the value of these skills and knowledge. Experts by Experience have a significant role in enhancing mental health nursing education. The impact of this involvement on attitudes to mental health nursing has not been well researched.

Aim

To explore the impact of Expert by Experience-led teaching on students’ perceptions of mental health nursing.

Methods

Qualitative exploratory study involving focus groups with nursing students from five European countries and Australia.

Results

Following Expert by Experience-led teaching, participants described more positive views towards mental health nursing skills and knowledge in three main ways: learning that mental health is everywhere, becoming better practitioners, and better appreciation of mental health nursing.

Conclusions

Experts by experience contribute to promoting positive attitudinal change in nursing students towards mental health nursing skills and knowledge. Attitudinal change is essential for the provision of high-quality mental health care in specialist mental health services and throughout the healthcare sector.

Keywords:

• Attitudes education of health professionals
• experts by experience
• mental health mental health nursing nurse education
• nursing practice

Ethical statement

Ethics approval was obtained prior to study commencement by the University of Canberra Human Research and Ethics Committee (project number: 17-106). Ethics approval details from other universities: The Icelandic Data Protection Authority: S8513/2019; Dublin City University DCUREC/2017/144; University College Cork.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge and thank: Erasmus + for the funding which made this innovative project possible. The students who generously gave of their time to complete the questionnaires. Ms Nathasha Munasinge for her assistance with coordinating data collection from participating countries and for data entry for the Australian component. Staff who assisted with the distribution and collection of questionnaires and with data entry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.