Nursing student attitudes to psychiatric nursing and psychiatric disorders in New Zealand

Abstract

Attitudes towards mental illness and psychiatric nursing can have far-reaching consequences for patients and the perceived desirability of this as a future career choice. Attitudes can be both brought into training and affected by training experiences, although the direction of these associations is unclear. Using a cross-section design, this study investigates the associations between attitudes, demographic variables, mental illness exposure, and career aspirations in 164 nursing students. Year of training and area of intended practice independently predicted attitudes. These findings have important implications for nursing training. They demonstrate the need for specifically focusing training to target the students with the most negative attitudes.

Undergraduate nursing students’ attitude towards mental illness: a cross sectional study

“…These findings were not in coherence with a previous study that showed mental illness is deeply discredited by the society and rejected as a result of which the same was also rated high by medical students. 8,9 The present study findings is in coherence with a study conducted among Jordanian nursing students as it was found nursing students had significant positive attitudes toward mental illness in four of the five attitudes factors: Authoritarianism; benevolence; mental hygiene ideology; and interpersonal etiology. 10 The stigma related to mental illness is an international concern and a long-standing challenge for research to understand its basis, mechanisms and consequences in order to be able to formulate means by which stigma and its impact may be ameliorated.…”

Comparing Mental Illness Stigma among Nurses in Psychiatric and Non-Psychiatric Wards in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences

“…Acta facultatis medicae Naissensis 2017;34(1):13-22 have had more positive views (27,34). If this is true, findings obtained by questionnaires contradict true outlooks.…”

“…In a study on nursing students, Surgenor concluded that nursing students in their final year of training reported a significantly more positive attitude than those in their first year of training (27)(28)(29). The reason was probably the difference between the type and amount of contact.…”

“…A number of studies reported that work experience and type of ward were not associated with staff and students' attitude (24,27,33). In fact, contact in other forms such as being mentally ill or having a family member or a friend with mental illness contributes more to the creation of positive attitudes.…”

“…However, 86.7% of nurses working in nonpsychiatric wards did not like to work in the psychiatric ward in the future, and 63.3% of nurses working in the psychiatric ward liked to continue to work there. In his research, Surgenor concluded that psychiatric nursing was the least popular future choice of students and, as a group, they held diverse views and attitudes about psychiatric illness and psychiatric nursing similar to the general public (27).…”