Developing a service user designed tool for the assessment of student mental health nurses in practice: A collaborative process

Summary

In this article we describe and critically analyse the process of developing an assessment tool designed by users of mental health services to assess student nurses in practice. The developmental process raised a number of complex and unexpected issues. The findings suggest that rather than “assess” student nurses in practice, service users should have a role in reviewing student's practice. Whilst there was a consensus amongst stake-holders that engaging in this feedback process is beneficial to both the student and service user, it is the manner in which it is sought which requires further investigation.

Introduction

This article reports upon the development of a service user designed tool for the assessment of student mental health nurses in practice. This development was one phase of a larger nurse education participatory action research project (Service User Student Assessment (SUSA)) previously reported in Nurse Education Today (Stickley et al., 2010). This study aimed to assess the feasibility of integrating service user involvement into the practice assessment of mental health student nurses into the mainstream pre-registration curriculum. In the UK, courses consist of a “Common Foundation Programme”, where students study together to acquire the generic knowledge relevant to all fields of nursing. Students then move into their branch programme where they are able to choose to engage in the study of adult, child, learning disability or mental health nursing. Courses are usually at Diploma and Bachelor levels. The reported research study was conducted with mental health branch students in a Division of Nursing in England.

Academic researchers worked in collaboration with Making Waves, an organisation made up of people who have used mental health services. Making Waves have been established for approximately eight years and provide, service evaluation of mental health services, contribute to the development and evaluation of courses and provide research, education and training. They were commissioned to define the focus of an assessment tool that would be used by service users to assess student nurses in practice. This paper describes and critically analyses the process of developing and piloting the assessment tool during the implementation of the larger action research project.

The findings suggest that rather than “assess” student nurses in practice, service users should have a role in reviewing students' practice. A requirement to gain feedback on practice from service users to demonstrate students' clinical competence appeared to be a more advantageous model than the use of a structured and standardised assessment tool. Despite this, the process which informed the development of the tool offers a great deal of insight into the complexities of involving service users in the assessment of student nurses in practice and can offer useful guidance to others attempting to implement this kind of initiative. Whilst there is strong policy support for the involvement of service users in both practice and research in the United Kingdom (UK), there are few published reports of the findings of such initiatives.