Nursing Students’ Experience of Self-Disclosure to Patients in Psychiatric Nursing Practice

Abstract

This study elucidates the experience of nursing students’ self-disclosure to their patients during their interactions in a psychiatric nursing practical training and aims to obtain knowledge regarding educating nursing students on self-disclosure as a way to build a therapeutic relationship with mentally-ill patients. The subjects were 9 student who had completed psychiatric nursing training and conducted a semi-structured interview method. After composing a word-for-word record, I extracted concise stories on how participants experienced self-disclosure to patients during their interactions with them in the psychiatric nursing practical training. There were three categories found within these stories: (1) Self-disclosure to the patients became the catalyst for building a relationship; (2) Self-disclosure or questions from patients led to self-disclosure from participants; (3) Self-disclosure was not possible for participants to do easily. There is a process that nursing students must go through to get to the point where self-disclosure is possible; students deal with various emotions while continuing to interact with patients; and that these are affected by guidance and support from teachers, coaches, and group members.