Novice Nurse Series: How to Prepare Novice Nurses to Care for Mental Health Patients

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than one in five adults live with a mental illness. Nurses are often the first professionals these patients interact with, so it’s important to teach them to do so with respect, empathy, dignity, and care. 

Judy Kangus, a psych nurse of 39 years, reinforces the importance of mental health preparation in her interview statement, “nurses who do not specialize in psychiatric nursing are not prepared to work with patients who come into a public emergency room with a mental illness, despite the prevalence of it.”

Novice nurses often feel unprepared to work with patients with mental health challenges. This usually stems from a lack of experience. How can nurse educators and preceptors properly prepare these new nurses to compassionately and effectively work with this population?

In this Novice Nurse Series, UbiSim is shedding light on the ways nurse educators can teach new nurses how to work with specific populations. 

How Nurses Feel about Working with Mental Health Challenges

Peart et al. (2022) asked practicing novice nurses how they felt working with patients with mental health challenges in their emergency department. Here are some of the responses:

• “I was never taught how to actually ask the questions or what questions to ask.”
• “I feel like I'm good at talking to them … when they're calm. If they're already heightened, I'm not as confident to de-escalate … I think I just stand back, and I don't know how to help, and I just let someone else do it because I wouldn't put myself in the situation not knowing.”
• “If I [am allocated patients with] mental health, I'm definitely more nervous than if … they were medical patients.”

Mental Health Stigma in Healthcare

Stigma for people with mental health challenges exists in healthcare settings just as it does in the rest of the world. Research has shown that “people with lived experience of a mental illness commonly report feeling devalued, dismissed, and dehumanized by many of the health professionals with whom they come into contact” (Knaak et al., 2017, para. 5).

Mental illness-related stigma is a huge barrier to effective patient care, and the research study sheds light on the sources of this stigma. Although education and training need to happen with novice nurses, it’s also important to acknowledge that change is needed on a systemic level, too.

How Can You Teach A  Novice Nurse to Care for Patients with Mental Health Challenges?

Role-Playing Exercises

Role-playing exercises can be a valuable tool in training novice nurses to handle mental health challenges. These exercises allow nurses to practice different scenarios, such as de-escalating a crisis situation or conducting a mental health assessment, in a controlled and safe environment. Role-playing helps build confidence and improve communication skills, making nurses better prepared for real-life situations.

Virtual Reality Simulation

Communication is the most important factor when working with patients with mental health challenges. In UbiSim’s immersive virtual reality training platform, students and trainees can practice therapeutic communication.

UbiSim has several mental health scenarios ranging from anxiety to Alzheimer’s to depression. In the depression scenario, participants assess vital signs of a patient presenting to an outpatient mental health clinic, screen for depression with PHQ-9, evaluate suicide risk, and provide therapeutic support. Novice nurses can make mistakes and move through discomfort in VR to get more confident about providing care to real patients in clinical practice. 

Integrate Case Studies

Case studies are an effective way to teach novice nurses about mental health challenges. By analyzing real-life scenarios, nurses can better understand the nuances of mental health care. Educators can use case studies to discuss symptoms, treatment plans, and therapeutic communication techniques, fostering a deeper understanding of patient care.

UbiSim also integrates case studies in each scenario, and the framework for them is the Clinical Judgment Measurement Model.

Encourage Self-Care

Nurses are already coping with unrealistic workloads, long hours, lack of resources, and other systemic issues that they are not responsible for fixing. There’s a reason why nurses are so burnt out! To help with this, encourage novice nurses to practice self-care. As an educator or preceptor, you can contribute to this by offering regular check-ins and creating a culture of support. Of course, self-care can only go so far and needs to be coupled with advocacy for systemic change. 

Advocate for Systemic Change

There’s only so much an individual novice or even seasoned nurse can do to train themselves to work with patients with mental health challenges. Training must be part of onboarding and continuous CE completion in hospitals and nursing schools. Nurses can also advocate for social policies that promote health equity, fairness, and justice and address the lack of access to resources that contribute to health inequities.

Final Thoughts

Novice nurses don’t have to feel nervous and unprepared to treat patients with mental health challenges. With proper training, they can feel confident, compassionate, and competent when working with them. Nurse educators can empower new nurses to overcome their anxieties and deliver high-quality mental health care.