Effectiveness of a Problem-Based Geropsychiatric Nursing Clinical Internship Program

Abstract

Clinical internships that effectively incorporate the care of older adults with mental health disorders are sparse in many countries, including Taiwan. This study investigated the effectiveness of a problem-based geropsychiatric clinical internship program for nursing students in Taiwan. We conducted a quasi-experimental study among 126 nursing students. Experimental and control groups received problem-based geropsychiatric and general psychiatric practice sessions, respectively. Knowledge, attitude, skills, and self-reflection were evaluated before (T1) and after (T2) measurements. There were no significant differences between the groups in knowledge, attitude, skills, and self-reflection at T1. At T2, knowledge was significantly higher in the experimental group (t = 2.39, p = 0.02). Attitude, skills, and self-reflection ability did not differ between the groups at T2. Our results showed that clinical problem-based approaches can be applied in geropsychiatric mental health nursing internship programs. The problem-based approach was helpful in improving nursing students’ knowledge about psychiatric symptoms and the health problems of older adults with mental illness. However, it did not significantly enhance or change the attitudes, skills, or the ability to self-reflect among students.

The effect of professional portfolio learning on nursing students’ professional self-concepts in geriatric adult internship: a- quasi-experimental study

“…Nonetheless, the effect of each education strategy was different. Therefore, incorporating a blended teaching-learning approach in this study was a very effective approach and so the outcomes attained were in line with those found in the researches of some studies by [ 16 , 22 ]. But interaction might not be sufficient in other PL studies as compared to the blended intervention.…”

“…Over the past two decades, the studying clinical environment in nursing practice education has received a bigger interest [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Clinical internship is a very important part of nursing education; it provides students with opportunities to practice what they have learned in the classroom, helping them to enhance their knowledge and skills to respond to everyday practice situations and to internalize nursing students’ positive recognition of nursing, professional attitudes, and develop professional self-concept [ 16 ]. Results of recent study by Mohajer et al in 2022 reported a moderate level of total PSC and the lowest dimensions in self-esteem among nursing students in Iran during internship nursing practice [ 17 ].…”

Effects of different geriatric nursing teaching methods on nursing students’ knowledge and attitude: Systematic review and network meta-analysis

“…Consequently, the adoption of the consistency model for fitting is warranted. Statistical significance is observed in the comparison between SL + TTM, SBL, PBL and traditional teaching method in terms of application effect (P < 0.05), as illustrated in Fig 5 . 13 studies [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] provided data on nursing students' attitude toward the elderly, involving 6 teaching methods, including SBL, Placebo SBL, SL + TTM, LOPP, PBL, TTM. The results of network Meta-analysis reveal that the results of inconsistency test were non-significant inconsistency (P > 0.05).…”