Professor Brenda Happell has been putting CQUniversity's mental health nursing team on the map again.

As CQUniversity's Engaged Research Chair for Mental Health Nursing, her recent visit to the UK, Ireland and Finland was exhausting but fruitful.

CQUniversity's Engaged Research Chair for Mental Health Nursing, Professor Brenda Happell

In three and a half weeks, Prof Happell visited three countries and eight cities, took 13 plane flights and five train trips, and stayed in nine different places.

Highlights included a visit to the Institute of Psychiatry and meetings with Professor Len Bowers and Debbie Robson. Prof Happell also met Dr Mark Haddad from City University.

An abstract for a presentation about the 'similarities and differences in nurses' attitudes to the physical health care of people with a mental illness' has already been submitted for the Network of Psychiatric Nursing Research conference to be held in the UK in September.

The team from CQUniversity's Centre for Mental Health Nursing Innovation (CMHNI), including Chris Platania-Phung and David Scott, plan to write this up and submit to a refereed journal.

The physical health care of people with mental illness was also the focus of discussions with Professor Patrick Callaghan from the University of Nottingham. The team is currently looking for funding opportunities to support this important bi-national work.

Professor Happell says her visit to Dr Eddie McCann at Trinity College, Ireland is likely to result in collaborative research about the sexual needs of service users in long-term forensic facilities, led by CMHNI PhD candidate Chris Quinn.

"The focus of the visit to the University of Salford was to explore creative ways to involve service users in the education of nurses for mental health practice, with Professor Tony Warne and Dr Sue McAndrew," Prof Happell says.

"Then it was off to the 2nd European Mental Health Nurses Conference in Turku, Finland. Two hundred and fifty delegates represented 25 countries from Europe and beyond. The keynote and plenary sessions were high quality and a sobering reminder of the many challenges facing mental health service delivery across the world, with the similarities frequently being greater than the differences."

On behalf of the CMHNI team, Prof Happell presented research findings from the survey of nurses in mental health regarding physical health care, and from the impact of Louise Byrne's innovative teaching in Recovery for Mental Health Practice.

"The papers were well received and CQUniversity is now even better known beyond our borders," Professor Happell says.

Prof Happell has been on sabbatical since January 2 and has also focused on writing grants, publications and books, including a second edition of the textbook: Introducing Mental Health Nursing: A Service User Oriented Approach. She will back on campus on July 1.