Personal change amongst mental health nursing students: a longitudinal study

Studies into the socialisation of nursing students have tended to concentrate on entrant's reactions to work and on the development of knowledge and skills in relation to a particular occupational culture. However, the extent and manner of personal and psychological changes experienced by mental health nursing students during occupational socialisation have yet to be thoroughly addressed in the literature.

To explore the psychological and personal changes of student mental health nurses over the first 2 years of their pre-registration mental health nursing programme.

Students from 2 mental health nursing cohorts at a London university were invited to participate. A semi-structured interview was used and the participants were asked to talk openly about their experiences. Ethics approval and informed consent was sought and obtained.

20 students were selected at random and invited to be interviewed on 5 occasions over a 2 year period at roughly 6 month intervals.

A total of 72 interviews were conducted. Interviews were tape recorded and verbatim transcribed for quantitative and qualitative content analyses.

Participants described moving from feeling uncertain, to increasing awareness and understanding of self and others, and, ultimately, feeling more accomplished in relation to their occupational world.

This study has highlighted the need for supporting students in developing their confidence and perceptions of self-efficacy and of recognising individual differences in student's responses to uncertainty.