The development and evaluation of a structured learning format introduction to behaviour therapy for psychiatric...

A five-day in-service course in behaviour therapy for psychiatric nurses is described. The course utilized a structured learning format and systematized the progression from classroom to ward by introducing supervised single-case studies, although these were carried out by only a minority of trainees. This paper describes the comprehensive evaluation of a large-scale training programme, incorporating a control group design and 10 'outcome' measures. The evidence obtained from these measures indicated that the structured learning was effective in promoting knowledge and skills with behavioural techniques in the experimental group nurses (n = 41). There were no significant improvements in the scores obtained by the matched control group of nurses (n = 18). These results were maintained at a one-year follow-up assessment and indicated that psychiatric nurses can acquire and maintain behavioural techniques, and that they can apply them successfully with their long-stay patients. However, the proportion of nurses actually conducting the single-case study 'projects' was low. The implications of this are discussed in terms of the 'setting events' for projects in the ward.