Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0487
+44 1478 350008
ISSN: 2161-0487
+44 1478 350008
Sunanda GovinderThimmajja
Dharwad Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother
Increasing prevalence of mental illnesses worldwide, nurses’ competence and preparedness in addressing patients’ mental health needs urgent particular attention. However, nurses who receive general nursing training may have inadequate knowledge and beliefs about mental health disorders. Aim: To examine the effectiveness of short term in-service training programme on improving nurses’ knowledge and attitude related to prevention and first aid management of mental illnesses. Methods: A quantitative, quasi experimental one group pre and post test design was carried out at a tertiary mental health care setting, Karnataka, with the sample consists of 50 registered nurses working at primary health care centers and Taluk hospitals located in North Karnataka, India. Results: The results were indicated that significantly effective on improving the nurses knowledge ((t=-15.70, p<0.001) and favorable attitude ((t=-2.63, p<0.001) regarding prevention and first aid management of mental illness among community. And also the results proves that significantly improvement in the referring the cases to mental health care settings after attending short term in-service training programme on prevention and first aid management of mental illness.( (t=-14.23, p<0.001). Conclusion: The study findings conclude that well-designed in-service training program for a nurses’ not only improves the knowledge and attitude of the nurses but also improves referrals of the mentally ill patients to higher centers. Key words: effectiveness, in-service training, knowledge, attitude, first aid management, m illnesses.
Sunanda GovinderThimmajja has completed her Ph.D in nursing. She is the Assistant Professor at DIMHANS, Dharwad, Karnataka, India. She has more than 12 years of working experience in mental health care settings as a nurse educator and psychiatric nurse expert. She has published more than 20 research papers in reputed journals.