Difficulties Experienced by Student Nurses during Psychiatric Nursing Practice and When They Occurred

Abstract

〔Purpose〕The study aimed to determine the aspects of psychiatric nursing practice with which students experienced difficulty, and when such perceived difficultiesarose.

〔Method〕Conferences and semi-structural interviews were held daily during or after practice with 11 undergraduate student nurses who interned in hospitals, focusing exclusively on the psychiatric service, to determine their perceived difficulties with psychiatric nursing practice.

〔Results〕The total of perceived difficulties extracted was 124, which were then classified into four genres, including environment, interaction with overall patients, interaction with the patients in charge, and drawing patient’s needs of help.

〔Discussion〕Perceived difficulties could be divided into three categories depending on when they occurred: （1） Early on in practice, they experienced difficulty in the environment or interaction with overall patients in the short term; then （2） perceived difficulties arose repetitively when drawing patient’s needs for help throughout the practice period, and （3） perceived difficulties when interacting with patients in charge emerged to varying extents throughout the practice period. Specifically, interaction with patients in charge was the most commonly cited source of perceived difficulties, which suggests that communication problems may be at the core of the latter.