Assessing and improving students’ collaborative skills using a mental health simulation: A pilot study

ABSTRACT

People with severe mental illnesses have complex needs that require coordinated care. However, students in different health professions are usually educated in silos without an emphasis on collaborative skills. Students would benefit from exposure to other disciplines that would increase appreciation of collaboration. This pilot study sought to understand how a mental health simulation (SIM) would influence a student’s perception of collaboration. The mental health SIM involved nursing, social work, occupational therapy and public health students who worked with standardized patients. Students were given the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale-21 (ISVS-21) that measures attitudes, values, and feelings about interprofessional collaboration. A baseline of 113 students in the four health professions were administered the pretest and a subset of nine who participated in the SIM completed the posttest. This study suggests that SIM may be a promising way of improving attitudes toward collaborative care, though it is important for the SIM to reflect real life treatment conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional Education
• mental Illness
• mental Health
• simulated Learning
• quantitative Method

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jillian Graves

Jillian Graves is an Assistant Professor of Social Work in the School of Health and Human Services at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI.  She received a PhD in Social Work from the Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work.  She has over 20 years of experience working in mental health outpatient settings and in the juvenile justice court system. Her research focuses on caregiving for people diagnosed with Schizophrenia, sibling identity research, adolescent and emerging adult development and trauma reactive violence. Dr. Graves currently educates students in practice oriented classes and seeks to educate and provide students with opportunities for interprofessional education.

Renuka Roche

Renuka Roche is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the Occupational Therapy (OT) program of the College of Health and Human Services at Eastern Michigan University. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy from Christian Medical College, India, a post-professional Master of Science (OT) degree from University of Illinois at Chicago and a PhD (Physical Rehab Sciences) from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. She has over 22 years of experience as an OT practicing in different clinical and teaching settings including acute care, inpatient rehabilitation services, psychiatric settings and school setting. Her clinical expertise is in neurological conditions across the lifespan. Her research focuses on motor control and occupational performance in disorders such as developmental coordination disorder, autism spectrum disorder and muscular dystrophy. She also is involved with studying access to resources and rehabilitation services by individuals with disabilities and their families. As teacher–scientist, she is actively involved in creating interprofessional educational opportunities for students and studying its effectiveness.

Vicki Washington

Vicki Washington, MSN, RN, APRN, ACNS-BC is tenure-track faculty at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) School of Nursing and Lead Faculty of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing program. Vicki is currently pursuing her Doctor of Nursing Practice at EMU. Professor Washington has practiced nursing for 39 years, 34 of the years in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing. In July 2016 Vicki retired from Acute Inpatient Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing practice for the Department of Veterans Affairs VA Ann Arbor hospital and transitioned to full-time academia.  During her years of clinical practice, Vicki recognized significant disparity in the mentally ill population, driving her to make a difference.  In 2012, Vicki completed her advanced practice nursing degree and certification in adult health. Vicki is passionately focused on holistic health care and health promotion to decrease disparity and reduce the stigma in the mentally ill population.

John Sonnega

John Sonnega is an Assistant Professor of Public Health Education in the College of Health and Human Services at Eastern Michigan.  He received a Ph.D. in Public Health Psychology from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.  He has experience in both academic and applied public health, having served as the director of the University of Michigan’s worksite wellness stress management program, Mhealthy Thrive.  His research focuses on two areas: 1) the psychosocial context of sleep; and 2) development and implementation of workplace wellness programs.  Currently he directs the undergraduate Public Health major at Eastern Michigan.