Critical Thinking and Mental Health Nurse Education

This paper examines critical thinking as a fundamental proficiency essential for inclusion in international mental health nurse education. Pragmatic solutions ensure the ongoing development of critical thinking in mental health nurses. The suitability of current mental health nurse education is under scrutiny globally. Critics claim that regulatory and educational standards have shifted from a focus on mental health-specific skills to generic physical health-based competencies, which do not adequately equip mental health nurses for clinical practice. The vital skill of critical thinking within mental health nurse theory and practice has been diluted (stating that it is a position paper or critical review, for example). This paper is a critical review of mental health nursing education. By summarising the global contextual background of generic-based nursing education, it highlights the impact of the loss of mental health-specific skill sets. Critical thinking is identified as a vital skill for the 21st-century mental health nurse. This paper provides pragmatic suggestions to include critical thinking in nurse education in the absence of global reform and systemic educational change. Personal lived experience is used to illustrate the importance of critical thinking and service users' experience of care. Critical thinking can be a partial solution to the current dilution of mental health nurse education occurring across the global North. Nurse educators should strive to embed critical thinking into mental health nurse education in order to develop lifelong critical thinkers who are not afraid to question the hegemonic perspective and continually ask, "why?" Recommendations are for nurse educators to be consciously aware of methods to encourage critical thinking, such as Socratic questioning, the consideration of epistemic injustice, coproduction, critical reflexivity and including case-based ethical learning.