Engaging Nursing Students in Mental Health Concepts Through Multiple Teaching Modalities.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Mental Health Nursing

Background:

• Active learning strategies can improve nursing students' understanding of mental health.
• Key areas include knowledge, critical thinking, communication, and attitude.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of various active learning strategies in mental health nursing education.
• To compare student perceptions of different teaching modalities.

Main Methods:

• An accelerated baccalaureate nursing program used team-based learning, video response assignments, clinicals, and standardized patient simulations.
• Twenty-two nursing students evaluated the efficacy of each method.

Main Results:

• In-person clinicals and team-based learning were favored for improving knowledge, critical thinking, communication, and attitudes.
• Standardized patient simulations were less favored than clinicals but more than video assignments.

Conclusions:

• Nursing students perceived in-person clinicals and team-based learning as most effective for mental health education.
• Further research is recommended for formal evaluation of mental health teaching modalities.