Despite increased funding in child and adolescent mental health there remains a shortage of qualified health professionals working in this area in New Zealand. This study was designed to determine whether increasing training in child and adolescent mental health would increase undergraduate nursing, occupational therapy and social work students’ interest in working in the area. An additional aim of the study was to develop a sustainable teaching resource on child and adolescent mental health in CD-Rom format.
Students participating in the study were asked to complete a questionnaire before and after attending a workshop in child and adolescent mental health and again at a follow-up point, three to 16 weeks later, to establish whether or not this had influenced their stated career intentions. To assess students’ and their educator’s perceptions of the quality and acceptability of the workshop a quality of teaching questionnaire was administered after the workshop.
Three-hundred-and-seventy-three students participated in 14 workshops held in seven cities around New Zealand. The workshop had a positive impact on students’ career intentions in relation to child and adolescent mental health. A repeated measures analysis showed an overall time effect (F2,546 = 16.29, p = <0.0001). Further investigation of this difference was carried out using a multiple comparison test (Scheffe test) which showed a highly significant positive increase in career intentions between pre-workshop and post-workshop ratings (p = <0.0001), which dropped between post-workshop and follow-up (p = 0.004), with no change between pre-workshop and follow-up ratings (p = 0.43). There was no differential effect by students’ professional group (p = 0.08), ethnicity (p = 0.6), gender (p = 0.75) or age (p = 0.26).
The study reflected similar career intention trends found in the literature. In particular, at base-line there were differences in profession-specific career intentions. Job attributes such as job satisfaction, personal interest, a job with supports available and being able to help people were also factors influencing students’ career intentions. The present study showed that a workshop on child and adolescent mental health had a significant immediate impact on undergraduate students’ career intentions
