[The unpopularity of mental health/psychiatry care settings among nursing students: A systematic review]

Professional identity and representations of advanced practice nurses specialising in psychiatry and mental health: A national study

Advanced practice nurses constitute a new professional group within the French health care system. Advanced practice nurses specialise in one of five disciplines including Psychiatry/Mental-Health. This specific discipline is strongly marked by stigmatising representations by healthcare users and other health professionals (including other advanced practice nurses), whose consequences have a deleterious effect. The aim was to highlight all advanced practice nurses representation of Psychiatry/Mental-Health advanced practice nurses. An observational descriptive survey, based on an anonymous online questionnaire was conducted in April 2022 among qualified and student advanced practice nurses from the five specialist disciplines. Overall, 356 advanced practice nurses completed the survey questionnaire. No significant difference in stigmatising representations of Psychiatry/Mental-Health advanced practice nurses versus other advanced practice nurses was observed. Only 3.3% of other advanced practice nurses thought that Psychiatry/Mental-Health advanced practice nurses are often 'strange'. Psychiatry/Mental-Health advanced practice nurses and other advanced practice nurses appeared to have similar representations of the professional roles of advanced practice nurses in general and of advanced practice nurses APN specifically. Unlike other professionals in the psychiatric field (e.g. medical interns, nurses), very little stigmatisation of Psychiatry/Mental-Health advanced practice nurses by their colleagues (i.e. other advanced practice nurses) was observed. This could be partly due to the fact that advanced practice nurses professional identity appeared to be built collectively around the concept of advanced practice. Advanced practice nurses constitute a professional group that is fully involved in contemporary transformations in care and organisational innovation. The very low level of stigmatisation of Psychiatry/Mental-Health advanced practice nurses by other advanced practice nurses in our study suggests that these new healthcare actors could play a crucial role in the improvement of professional health practices, particularly in terms of improved coordination between psychiatric-care and physical-care.

[Understanding the lived experiences of undergraduate nursing students during a mental health practicum. An interpretive phenomenological analysis]

In a global context where populations' mental health needs are growing rapidly, recruiting the next generation of nurses to work in these care settings is particularly problematic. Because of their negative views on mental health issues, nursing students reject such a career path. According to the literature, training programs, particularly clinical immersions, are the main way of mitigating the unpopularity of mental health care among this new generation of nurses. Through an interpretive phenomenological analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with eleven undergraduate nursing students, this research studied their learning experience during a clinical immersion in mental health care. Anchored in Parse's humanbecoming theory, this study explores the meaning that students attribute to such an experience, the experiential negotiation processes of the practicum setting, and the participants' ability to project themselves beyond the learning experience itself. These results raise various issues related to mental health nursing education, such as the importance of having a nursing role model, as well as various influencing factors related to the rejection of a career in mental health care by the next generation, such as the perception that working in these care settings involves an increased risk of aggression.