Campus Location

Dallas Campus (Online)

Date of Award

9-2023

Document Type

DNP Project

Department

Nursing

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Tonya McGee

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Sandra Cleveland

Abstract

The focus of this study was on mental health education for nurses who care for adults with severe mental illness. Severe mental illness is rising, and nurses cannot adequately provide quality patient-centered care to the population due to poor knowledge. In this study, the knowledge and perceptions of mental illness and care among registered nurses in the community were assessed before and immediately after a mental illness educational session. A non-experimental quantitative descriptive study was conducted using convenience sampling in a home health setting. Dorothea Orem's self-care theory was the theoretical framework that guided the project. Instruments included the Mental Health Problems Perception Questionnaire (MHPPQ), a pretest on mental illness, education on mental illness, and a posttest on mental illness. Nurses received the MHPPQ survey and a pretest to assess their baseline knowledge and perceptions of mental illness and care. A 1-hour educational session on severe mental illness and care followed the survey and pretest. The educational session aimed to increase participants' knowledge and competency in mental health care. After the educational intervention, the original nurse participants were administered the posttest. Forty-four registered nurse participants completed the MHPPQ, pre-and post-tests. Data from the survey and tests were organized using Microsoft Excel and Intellectus Statistics and analyzed using frequencies and percentages in tables/crosstabs. A dependent t-test was used to evaluate differences or statistical significance between the pretest and posttest administered to the same nurse participants to determine whether the training impacted care or produced change. The results showed that the nurses' knowledge improved following the education session. The intervention effectively improved nurses' knowledge and perceptions of caring for the adult population with mental illness.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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