HLT54115 Diploma of Nursing

CHCPOL003 – Research and apply evidence to practice

Assessment 1:

Article Critique

Rebecca Walker
101285044
Group 18 GH
Objective
Due to the prevalence of stereotypes and misconceptions which pervade the topic of mental

illness, it is important to identify how these attitudes may impact the professionals

responsible for administering mental health care to persons suffering mental illness ("Mental

health nursing staff's attitudes towards mental illness: an analysis of related factors," 2019.).

The objective of this article critique is to research the attitudes and beliefs held by nursing

student to see if these may be improved upon to increase the positive outcomes for those

receiving mental health care.

Available Literature.
The database used was CINHAHL Complete, accessed through the EBSCO Host. Search

terms used to discover this article were as following;

o Nursing students

o Mental Health

o Attitudes

The first search yielded over 100 results. In order to narrow this down, search conditions

were set so as to only yield results which were peer reviewed, contained available

references, under the category of “Nursing and within the time period of 2017-2019. These

parameters refined the search and reduced the yield to 11 results.

Out of the 11 results remaining from the limited search parameters, the article chosen was

the most relevant to the goal hypothesis. Other considerations were that it was the most

recent study, conducted in late 2018 and further revised in January 2019, hypothesis and

held merit above the other results as it was a multinational study which analysed data

collected from several other studies of the same or of a similar hypothesis to its own.
Article Critique:

Of “Nursing student attitudes to people labelled with 'mental illness' and

consumer participation: A survey-based analysis of findings and
psychometric properties.”
Brenda Happell, Chris Platania-Phung, Brett Scholz, Julia Bocking, Aine Horgan,
Fionnuala Manning, Rory Doody, Elisabeth Hals, Arild Graneru, Mari Lahti, Jarmo Pullo,
Annaliina Vatula, Heikki Ellilä, Kornelis Jan van der Vaart, Jerry Allon, Martha Griffin,
Siobhan Russell, Liam MacGabhann, Einar Bjornsso, Pall Bierin.

The aim of the study was to examine the attitudes of nursing students toward mental illness

and recognise any commonalities the nursing students shared.

Its hypothesis was to explore these results and identify if any of the nursing students shared

the commonality of a mental illness diagnosis, or had participated in consuming mental

health care services, and whether these experiences of mental health care had had a

positive impact on the attitudes of the students.

The design methodology used was a combination of the results garnered from a self-report

Consumer Participation Questionnaire which measured their consumer satisfaction levels

related to the mental health care the students had received, and from the self-report Mental

Health Nurse Education Survey (MHNES, which contains 24 domains of mental health.

Results taken from 7 domains of MHNES addressing specific views relevant to the

hypothesis were selected for this study, to explore the specific views of the students toward

mental illness and the measure level of endorsement the students held of these views.

The study sample included 424 participants, of which 82% were female and 80% were

between the ages of 18 and 29 years of age. Just over half of the sample was equally

divided between Norway and Australia, with Ireland, Finland and the Netherlands divided

between the remaining 1/3rd of participants.

There was a disproportionate number of women (82%) who participated in the study may

cause a discrepancy in the results due to the lack of representation of men (Salamonson et

al., 2011.), and the lack of a third gender option, which disallows the possibility of exploring

the results and variables of this refinement, which may entail a cohort of its own further study

possibilities (Godman, 2018.). The relatively small number of students (<16%) outside of the

18-29 years age bracket does not seem to impact the representation of the public, as those

aged 18-29 make up most of student nurses globally (Allam & Riner, 2014).

The study focus remained relevant to the set research objective while also addressing the

multitude of variables which were necessary to refine the results into an outcome which was

reliable and allows for replication

Discussion of the merits discovered and the potential for future studies based on the new

evidence this study collected and how it may be applied to nursing practice, addresses the

aim of this study quite adequately.

Participation in the research was approved by local ethics boards for each university. The

students whom participated in the study were all voluntary and notified of the measures used

to protect their confidentiality.

Conventional factor analysis is used to determine which factors are most prevalent amongst

the subjects of a study in order to use them to study which other common factors they share.

The data results collected from this can be used in accordance with the Rasch Scale in

order to refine the results.

The Rasch Scale is strongly recommended in nursing field and also complements

conventional factor analysis as it is used to further analyse factors identified by CFA. The
Rasch scale utilises the use of questions that range from standard to above standard

difficulty in order to assess the knowledge level of students. The use of method was

presented with its relevance to both the questionnaire and the MHNES, as well as a specific

table which clearly outlined the refinements made to the methods.

Hierarchical regression method takes a dependable variable and it’s known covariates and

adds a new variable in order to establish if this new variable adds or subtracts from the

predictability of the dependable variable. This method was used for the second objective of

the study to discover if consumer participation was impacted by attitudes towards mental

health and presented in table 5, to demonstrate the parameters which accounted for any

differences between attitude and consumer participation.

The methods described are all known as complimentary methods for assessing data

collected from health studies and when applied correctly have been recommended as

analysing data for nursing studies.

Two limitations to the data collection and analysis used were described. The first addressed

the cross-sectional nature of the study, as it limited the ability to determine if some of the

results were dependant or independent of other variables, meaning a small percentage

could not be evaluated. The second issue was regarding additional functioning of some

variables in the MHNES which could not be addressed. Neither of these limitations were

significant enough to change the overall outcome of the study, however they do demonstrate

the presence of additional variables which may be useful to identify and explore in further

studies on this topic.

The results of this study indicated that a higher level of satisfaction in consumers of mental

health care was associated with a more positive attitude towards mental illness being held.

This is possibly an important association as this study shows that the factors which

determine positive experiences for persons consuming mental health care may be fleshed
out and improved upon, and thus have a probability to improve attitudes in nursing staff

working in mental health towards their patients, which can perpetuate a positive trajectory of

MH consumer satisfaction and reduce some of the negative stigma and stereotypes which

are associated with mental illness.

The applicability of the results of this research are somewhat limited to results that require

further study and implementation of policies which, based on this research, aim to optimise

the satisfaction of persons who receive or personally know someone whom may require

mental health care, however it is possible to utilise some of the evidence found in this

research to directly apply it to practice.

By acknowledging the prevalence of negative stereotypes which contribute to the

perpetuation of stigma attached to mental illness, one may apply situational empathy when

they come into contact with mental illness, seek to educate themselves and other on the

misconceptions these stereotypes promote, as well as adjusting their own behaviour and

language accordingly, to decrease their own contribution to the stigma.

One may also seek to actively participate in the planning and implication of treatment goals,

gaining the experience which was shown to increase a pro-consumer attitude towards

mental illness by extending the understanding of the treatment process and experiences of

those who receive mental health care services.

These attitudinal adjustments may prove to positively contribute to the attitudes of fellow

nursing students and increasing the level of understanding which they may apply to their

own practice as a professional.

References:
Allam, E., & Riner, M. E. (2014). The Global Perspective of Nursing Students in Relation to
College Peers. Global Journal of Health Science, 7(2). doi:10.5539/gjhs.v7n2p235

Godman, M. (2018). Gender as a historical kind: a tale of two genders? Biology &
Philosophy, 33(3-4). doi:10.1007/s10539-018-9619-1

Happell, B., Platania-Phung, C., Scholz, B., Bocking, J., Horgan, A., Manning, F., … Biering,
P. (2019). Nursing student attitudes to people labelled with ‘mental illness’ and consumer
participation: A survey-based analysis of findings and psychometric properties. Nurse
Education Today, 76, 89-95. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2019.02.003

Mental health nursing staff's attitudes towards mental illness: an analysis of related factors.
(2019). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4263306/

Salamonson, Y., Ramjan, L., Lombardo, L., Lanser, L., Fernandez, R., & Griffiths, R. (2011).
Diversity and demographic heterogeneity of Australian nursing students: a closer look.
International Nursing Review, 59(1), 59-65. doi:10.1111/j.1466-7657.2011.00925.x