Lights, Camera, Action: Lessons Learned From a Nursing and Theater Collaboration.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Mental Health Nursing
• Simulation-Based Learning

Background:

• Limited clinical sites hinder nursing students' interaction with individuals with mental illness.
• An innovative teaching strategy was developed to address this gap.
• The strategy aimed to provide practical experience in a controlled environment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement an innovative teaching strategy for psychiatric mental health nursing students.
• To enhance nursing students' communication skills through simulated patient interactions.
• To explore a collaborative model between nursing and theater departments.

Main Methods:

• Collaborated with the theater department to train undergraduate theater students as standardized patients (SPs).
• Theater students undertook an independent study to practice acting skills.
• Senior nursing students in a psychiatric mental health nursing course interacted with trained SPs.

Main Results:

• The collaborative process has been successfully implemented for two years.
• Ten theater students completed the independent study.
• 180 nursing students engaged with SPs, showing improvements in communication skills.

Conclusions:

• This pilot project demonstrated the successful implementation of a novel teaching strategy.
• Improvements in nursing students' communication skills were observed.
• Further research is recommended to fully explore the learning effectiveness for both nursing and theater students.