A complex population: Nurse's professional preparedness to care for medical-surgical patients with mental illness

Globally, patients with the co-morbidity of physical and mental illness experience greater health complexities than the general population. Yet nurses caring for medical-surgical patients with a secondary diagnosis of mental illness are often unprepared for these complexities. This paper focuses on professional experiences from a more extensive parent study that evaluated components of nursing preparedness (nursing care self-efficacy and mental health care competency) to provide care for medical-surgical patients who also have mental illness. The parent study explored characteristics of variables (personal, educational and professional) more frequently associated with and more predictive of nursing preparedness. Discussed will be the findings from characteristics of professional experiences that best indicated nurse preparedness to care for medical-surgical patients with mental illness. A descriptive correlational design was used with a convenience sample of RNs (N = 260) from a tertiary health system in the south-eastern United States. Findings significantly indicated three characteristics of professional experiences - mentoring, frequency of care and continuing education - best prepare a registered nurse to care for this complex population. Further research is necessary to locate, grow and develop mentors and to construct accessible, affordable continuing education regarding care of this population for a prepared nursing workforce and work environment.