Embedding Service User Experience (‘Experts by Experience’) Into Undergraduate Mental Health Nursing Education: A Co-Production Research Project

Abstract

Internationally, the need to have service user involvement (the ‘voice’ of recovery journeys) as an established and significant feature on the landscape of professional development has been widely discussed in the area of mental health nursing (MHN) education for over a decade. Service user involvement contributes to a different understanding, bringing ‘new’ ways of knowing in nursing education and potentially new ways of practicing within mental health services. The objective of this co-produced research was to investigate the current local ‘state of play’ of service user involvement in MHN student education in a regional university in the Republic of Ireland. This was not research ‘on’ participants as conventionally conceived, but rather research ‘with’ participants as co-researchers. Therefore, a group of people [i.e., ‘experts by experience/service users’ (n = 2), ‘student nurses’ (n = 2), ‘nurse academics’ (n = 2)], came together by agreement in recognition of a problem (service user engagement in education) to seek local knowledge and through ‘creative dialogue’ to identify potential improvements/developments. The key outcomes concentrated on the need for person-centred care to be more than a one-off lecture in a course, but to be central to MHN education and ongoing practice. The need for MHNs to be educated to grasp that the individual they work with is not ‘an island’, but is connected to a wider network of family, friends and potentially peer support workers, etc. is highlighted. To enhance MHN education going forward, there is a need for ‘lived experience’ to be a consistent element of education programmes. Achieving this will require stable working relationships with the establishment of career pathways for ‘experts by experience’ to develop skills and experience in education settings. The pace of culture change in MHN education is sporadic at best and downright slow at worst. However, a lot has been done, but there is more to do: ‘We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go…’.