Pharmacy Students Reflect on an Experiential Learning Visit to a Psychiatric Hospital

Objective: We sought to create a brief experiential educational intervention for undergraduate pharmacy students aimed at developing appropriate attitudes, knowledge and skills for the delivery of Recovery-focussed pharmacy services to people experiencing mental illness. We sought to elicit student perceptions of the value and impact of our intervention.Methods: We developed a novel brief intervention for a cohort of 44 fourth-year pharmacy students attending a psychiatric teaching hospital in groups of 10-12. The intervention was integrated into the therapeutics module, and was based on Fink’s taxonomy of learning. Delivery of the intervention included input from a multidisciplinary team of mental health professionals and active learning strategies to give students an insight into the holistic approach to care and the patient journey. An exercise in reflective practice followed the visit. Content analysis of anonymised reflections from consenting students was used to identify themes and insights gained.R...