Mental health consumers and future service providers will benefit from the development of a new course at Central Queensland University which will link in with nursing students spending more practical time in mental health units.

CQU’s Head of the School of Nursing and Health Studies, based in Rockhampton, Dr Lorna Moxham last year identified the need for nursing students to access more information and acquire more skills to better work with mental health consumers. The result has been a new core course of study for the Bachelor of Health (Nursing) program called the Psychiatric Consumer.

In a first in Queensland, university lecturers are working directly with clinicians and consumers to develop the course which will change the way nurses think of and care for people with a mental illness.

“This is an exciting opportunity for those providing services and those receiving services to influence the education and attitudes of the next generation of nurses toward people with mental illness,” Dr Moxham said.

“The course will link in with the increased time now spent on placement in Mental Health Services.”.

This is really important as mental health is a national health priority area which affects 1 in 5 Australians.

Included in the new course will be:.

perspectives of consumers’ experiences of living with and recovery from an illness;.

information about the causes and assessment and management of mental illness;.

and the nurses’ role in providing a therapeutic environment and how to use themselves as a therapeutic tool to assist the consumers of services.

A two-day workshop for students of the new course will be run in 2006 and it is hoped consumers, carers and clinicians would be interested in sharing their experiences at this time.