Development of an online educational resource to improve mental health nursing students’ knowledge, skills and confidence to engage therapeutically with people experiencing psychosis’

Abstract

Background
Therapeutic conversations are central to person-centred recovery, helping to ease distress during periods of emotional pain and fear. However, the literature identified that mental health nurses’ responses to the person’s acute psychosis are inconsistent, and nursing students often experience fear, anxiety and avoidance when engaging with people experiencing psychosis. Education is essential to equip students with effective engagement skills, yet educational approaches have been resource intensive and unsustainable. In a positive development, learning environments are now extending beyond physical classrooms providing learning resources which are sustainable and respond to diverse learning preferences

Aim
The aim of this study was to explore mental health nursing students’ experiences of engaging in therapeutic conversations with people experiencing psychosis.

Method
A participatory action research (PAR) study was conducted across three college campuses in four phases using mixed methods to collect data. Phase 1 explored mental health students’ experiences of engaging through a survey. Phase 2 consisted of four stakeholder focus groups to further explore the salient issues of engaging. Phase 3 co-developed an online educational resource to improve the student’s knowledge, skills and confidence to engage with the person experiencing psychosis. Phase 4 evaluated the resource with 4th year students for acceptability and usability.

Results
The study developed the PACED framework (acronym – Preparation, Approaching, Connecting, Engaging and Disengaging), an innovative tool breaking engagement with people experiencing psychosis into smaller structured steps guiding the resource design. The evidence based online educational resource built on the RISE 360 platform, was found to be acceptable, usable, and adaptable to students’ diverse learning preferences while enabling sustainable year on year delivery.

Conclusion
Stakeholder involvement and contributions throughout all phases were invaluable, addressing a gap in the literature regarding their limited participation in education to date. As far as the researcher is aware this is the first framework (PACED) and online resource available to improve students’ ability to engage in therapeutic conversations with people experiencing psychosis.

Date of Award	May 2026
Original language	English
Sponsors	Atlantic Technology University, Donegal
Supervisor	Marie O'Neill (Supervisor) & Owen Barr (Supervisor)