Stimulating an interest in mental health nursing

A team of researchers at the University of Wollongong are currently examining the experiences of Bachelor of Nursing (BN) students as they engage in a stimulating learning experience in mental health

Self-determination in the context of mental health recovery

Approximately one in every five Australians will experience a mental illness each year (ABS, 2007). Mental illnesses are not homogenous. There are no clearly established clinical pathways and, as such, care and treatment is necessarily highly individualised

Can a clinical placement influence stigma? An analysis of measures of social distance

Background The way people who experience mental illness are perceived by health care professionals, which often includes stigmatising attitudes, can have a significant impact on treatment outcomes and on their quality of life. Objective To determine whether stigma towards people with mental illness varied for undergraduate nursing students who attended a non-traditional clinical placement called Recovery Camp compared to students who attended a \u27typical\u27 mental health clinical placement. Design Quasi-experimental. Participants Seventy-nine third-year nursing students were surveyed; n = 40 attended Recovery Camp (intervention), n = 39 (comparison group) attended a \u27typical\u27 mental health clinical placement. Methods All students completed the Social Distance Scale (SDS) pre- and post-placement and at three-month follow-up. Data analysis consisted of a one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) exploring parameter estimates between group scores across three time points. Two secondary repeated measures ANOVAs were performed to demonstrate the differences in SDS scores for each group across time. Pairwise comparisons demonstrated the differences between time intervals. Results A statistically significant difference in ratings of stigma between the intervention group and the comparison group existed. Parameter estimates revealed that stigma ratings for the intervention group were significantly reduced post-placement and remained consistently low at three-month follow-up. There was no significant difference in ratings of stigma for the comparison group over time. Conclusions Students who attended Recovery Camp reported significant decreases in stigma towards people with a mental illness over time, compared to the typical placement group. Findings suggest that a therapeutic recreation based clinical placement was more successful in reducing stigma regarding mental illness in undergraduate nursing students compared to those who attended typical mental health clinical placements

The effects of numeracy and presentation format on judgments of contingency

Covariation information can be used to infer whether a causal link plausibly exists between two dichotomous variables, and such judgments of contingency are central to many critical and everyday decisions. However, individuals do not always interpret and integrate covariation information effectively, an issue that may be compounded by limited numeracy skills, and they often resort to the use of heuristics, which can result in inaccurate judgments. This experiment investigated whether presenting covariation information in a composite bar chart increased accuracy of contingency judgments, and whether it can mitigate errors driven by low numeracy skills. Participants completed an online questionnaire, which consisted of an 11-item numeracy scale and three covariation problems that varied in level of difficulty, involving a fictitious fertilizer and its impact on whether a plant bloomed or not. Half received summary covariation information in a composite bar chart, and half in a 2 × 2 matrix that summarized event frequencies. Viewing the composite bar charts increased accuracy of individuals both high and low in numeracy, regardless of problem difficulty, resulted in more consistent judgments that were closer to the normatively correct value, and increased the likelihood of detecting the correct direction of association. Findings are consistent with prior work, suggesting that composite bar charts are an effective way to improve covariation judgment and have potential for use in the domain of health risk communication

A phenomenological examination of the meaning of resilience as described by people who experience schizophrenia

The aim of this study was to understand the meaning of resilience as described by people who experience schizophrenia. Building resilience is now a component of the professional standards for mental health nurses within Australia and of the mental health care delivered by health services. Very little is known about resilience in the context of schizophrenia and this thesis does not examine how to build resilience, it lays a foundation upon which to construct. Establishing the meaning of resilience for those who experience schizophrenia is an important first step in building understanding for both professionals and health services. Fourteen people who live with schizophrenia engaged in semi-structured interviews and described the meaning of resilience for them. NVivo 9TM data analysis software was used to capture the interview transcripts and to manage the process of interpreting text using van Kaam\u27s Psychophenomenological Method (Eppard & Anderson 1998). Analysis of participant data revealed that the meaning of resilience as described by people who experience schizophrenia is embedded within the struggle of striving to overcome the challenges brought by schizophrenia. Within the struggle, resilience means adopting an attitude of striving to overcome the severe adversity caused by the experience of schizophrenia. The process of striving enables the person to learn about themselves, the effect of the schizophrenia illness on them, and how to manage it in the context of the life they want to live. Striving to overcome schizophrenia involves struggle, including repeated backwards steps and during this, the person seeks out and uses supportive people and resources. This also comes with challenges and resilience emerges from the process of competently overcoming these challenges, in the quest for improvement. The person then seeks out new challenges and experiences and grows life in ways unrelated to just living to manage the illness. An implication of the findings for mental health professionals is that struggling, taking risks and exercising responsibility, even if it leads to a setback, are all important components of the meaning of resilience for people who experience mental illness

Schizophrenia and resilience: what does it mean?

A doctoral research examined the meaning of resilience for someone who is living with schizophrenia. What it didn\u27t examine was what makes people with schizophrenia resilient

A strong commitment to mental health nursing

The School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health (SNMIH) at the University of Wollongong, places great emphasis on providing nursing students with fundamental education and knowledge in mental health nursing. There are two dedicated undergraduate mental health subjects delivered within the Bachelor of Nursing (BN) program. Both subjects are placed in adjacent sessions to provide a consolidated speciality experience for all BN students. The two subjects incorporate core values and principles to guide the teaching of mental health nursing, learning outcomes that reflect the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council (ANMC) competencies and are based on recommendations from the Mental Health Nurse Education Taskforce’s (MHNET) framework for mental health content in comprehensive pre-registration nursing curricula

Assessment of mental health and mental illness

Mental Health: A Person-Centred Approach aligns mental health research with the human connections that can and should be made in mental health care. The authors seek to deepen students understanding of themselves, the work they do, and how this intersects with the lives and crises of people with mental health. Taking a storytelling approach, it presents real-life stories to provide students with first hand experiences...

People with schizophrenia can become resilient while recovering

People diagnosed with schizophrenia who consider themselves to have recovered were interviewed to identify what they believe resilience is and how it may have been involved in their recovery.Analysis of definitions of resilience provided by participants resulted in the following synthesis of meaning; being resilient means adopting an attitude of striving to overcome the adversity caused by the experience of schizophrenia. The process of striving enables the person to learn about themselves, the effect of the schizophrenia illness on them, and how to manage it in the context of the life they want to live. Striving to overcome schizophrenia involves struggle, including repeated backwards steps and during this, the individual seeks out and uses supportive people and systems. Having then learned how to overcome and manage the challenges of the schizophrenia illness the individual is then able to apply the same resilient attitude to engage in new challenges and experiences to grow their life in ways unrelated to the illness. Through experiencing the severe adversity of schizophrenia, the person has learned how to be resilient.The presentation will describe the process for becoming resilient with schizophrenia, including factors found to be supportive and factors found to be challenging to the process. An instrument for measuring the resilience of a person diagnosed with schizophrenia is being developed from the research findings

People with schizophrenia can become resilient while recovering

People diagnosed with schizophrenia who consider themselves to have recovered were interviewed to identify what they believe resilience is and how it may have been involved in their recovery. Analysis of definitions and narrative on resilience provided by participants resulted in the following synthesis of meaning. Being resilient means adopting an attitude of striving to overcome the adversity caused by the experience of schizophrenia. The process of striving enables the person to learn about themselves, the effect of the schizophrenia illness on them, and how to manage it in the context of the life they want to live. Striving to overcome schizophrenia involves struggle, including repeated backwards steps and during this, the individual seeks out and uses supportive people and resources. Having then learned how to overcome and manage the challenges of the schizophrenia illness the individual is then able to apply the same resilient attitude to engage in new challenges and experiences to grow their life in ways unrelated to the illness. Through experiencing and overcoming the severe adversity of schizophrenia, the person has learned how to be resilient