Integrating values into the mental health nursing curriculum

Abstract

In this article, the author relects on the changes and uncertainty surrounding mental health pre-registration nurse education. The article looks at new recommendations on the education of nurses and the explores how student nurses need to be aware of the values of their profession.

Cultural differences in General and Psychiatric Nurses: A critical analysis using Social Identity Theory

“…[88] In response to the feminised nature of nurse training [89] and female-oriented descriptions of nursing care [90] there appears to be growing use of more gender-neutral psychiatric nursing terminology, with phrases such as 'nurturing', 'compassion' and 'sympathy' [5,86,87,91] being replaced by 'empowerment', 'facilitation' and 'empathy'. [36,84,92] Furthermore, psychiatric nurses now emphasise distinctive features determining their practice, including holism, the therapeutic relationship, person-centred approach and therapeutic use of self [38,93,94] and sometimes even occupy roles from which the term 'nurse' itself is absent. [37] Whilst employing different language to describe psychiatric nursing interventions may increase the discipline's distinctiveness and possibly even help raise its status, it may also be divisive; increasing interactional misunderstandings between general and psychiatric nurses and raising suspicions about professional motives and conflicting values.…”