The Efficacy of a Psychoeducation on Common Psychiatric Emergencies Among Final Year Undergraduate Nursing Students in Mysore, India

Abstract

In many parts of the world, psychiatric care is often seen as something to be shunned, even though the field of psychiatry has made significant advancements, including better psychotropic medications and a range of psychotherapeutic options. The general public tends to view psychiatry primarily as a treatment for mental illness instead of addressing everyday life challenges. With a pre-experimental design, the current study sought to evaluate the impact of a psychoeducation program on frequent psychiatric crises on the knowledge of final-year B.Sc. Nursing students at a few nursing colleges Mysore. It also aimed to investigate how sociodemographic factors and knowledge levels relate to one another. A quasi-experimental approach known as "one-group pre-test–post-test (01 x 02)" was used to accomplish these goals. 60 B.Sc. nursing students in their last year were included in the sample. The tool utilized for gathering data is divided into two parts: Part I: Socio-demographic information comprising 3 items. Part II: 50 multiple-choice questions covering common mental health emergencies, such as hostility, compulsive behavior, stupor, and catatonia. The study's findings showed that in the pre-test, 6 students (10%) had adequate knowledge, 32 students (53.3%) possessed moderately adequate knowledge, and 22 students (36.7%) demonstrated inadequate knowledge. Following the implementation of the psychoeducation program, there was a significant improvement in knowledge in the post-test: none of the 60 students had inadequate knowledge, 50 students (83.3%) had adequate knowledge, and 10 students (16.7%) had moderately adequate knowledge. These results clearly demonstrate that the psychoeducation program was an effective approach for enhancing the knowledge of final year B.Sc. nursing students about common psychiatric emergencies. The probability values from the chi-square contingency table showed that the knowledge scores were related to the socio-demographic variables in the case of age, while they were independent in relation to other demographic variables.