The teaching of psychiatric nursing and mental health in the curriculum by competence

Abstract

Introduced in 2001, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Courses in the Health Area corroborated the curriculum offered at FAMEMA and pointed up the challenge to work with an integrated curriculum, guided by professional competence and based on the population healthcare needs. The change in the course's methodology meant that the course "Psychiatric Nursing" began to consider the student's experience in the various scenarios of the teaching-learning process. This study aimed to identify whether nurses graduated at FAMEMA had the necessary theoretical knowledge to perform the assistance tasks assigned to the multi-professional team at the Psychosocial Attention Centers level 1. It is a transversal study. A questionnaire with open questions was used for the data collection. The data descriptive analysis was carried out by comparing the answers and had as parameter the bibliographical references related to the studied themes. The results showed that the knowledge assimilated at the end of the course proved insufficient. In conclusion, the Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing area requires the reorganization of the practice settings in order to offer more learning opportunities to the students. Teachers should play the role of facilitators in the teaching - learning process so as to encourage nursing students to build up more knowledge in this area.