Standardized patients: a creative teaching strategy for psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner students

In this article, a learning strategy for psychiatric nurse practitioner students in a research-intensive university is described. The strategy actively involved students in experiences with standardized patients. The course content included review of the causes, manifestations, assessment, and diagnoses of psychopathology across the lifespan. The goal was for students to build diagnostic reasoning skills so they could conceptualize case formulations and examine differential diagnoses related to mental disorders. Faculty simulated complex mental health disorders in a controlled environment where students practiced assessment and diagnostic skills with feedback from faculty, peers, and the standardized patients. On completion of the course with six different standardized patient situations and a final standardized patient scenario that involved assessment, diagnosis, and creation of a formal paper about the case, the students demonstrated excellent interviewing skills, confident assessment abilities, appropriate use of screening and diagnostic tools, and accurate diagnosis of the standardized patients.