Mental health nursing practicum: student and mentor perspectives on stress and satisfaction

Nursing students begin to complete practcum experiences during their frst year, increasing the number of applied credits as they progress toward degree completon. This contributes to integratng knowledge and skills from all of their courses and to obtaining the basic competencies of the nursing profession. It is also essental to identfy the student’s sources of stress in order to provide strategies to confront them and diminish the potental consequences. Therefore, it is a priority to ascertain the percepton of stress and the stressors. This study applied both quanttatve and quality methods to achieve its objectves: to analyze the percepton of stress and the stress-generatng factors faced by third- and fourth-year nursing students during the mental health practcum, and to determine satsfacton with the new mental health practcum in a student survey and in a focus group of mentor nurses. Study results identfed four major stress factors before students began the practcum: the difculty of providing nursing care for the patent with a mental disorder, knowing how to react in an unfamiliar situaton, lack of knowledge about mental health services, and the possibility of patent aggression. Only the later remained as a stressor afer the practcum was completed. Student satsfacton with the mental health practcum was highly positve. Mentor nurses were partcularly satsfed with the changes in student follow-up and evaluaton, emphasizing the importance of refectve practce and students’ self-management of their learning experience as set out by the European Higher Educaton Area.