The Effect of Mental Health Course on Nurses’ Attitudes towards Suicide and Substances Use in Young People

Amira Najah, Noussayer Mohamed Dhaya, Mohamed Amine Amara

Abstract


The purpose of this study was to investigate possible attitudinal differences towards suicide and substances use of 120 Tunisian nurses between the age of 22 and 40 years old from two academic training curricula. Subjects were divided into two groups based on achieving the Academic Mental Health Program (AMHP) associated with young people, namely trained nurses (n=60) and untrained nurses (n=60) and compared with regard to 23 attitudes measured by means of the Attitudes towards Suicide Questionnaire (ATTS), the Short Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Perception Questionnaire (SAAPPQ) and the Drug and Drug Problems Perception Questionnaire (DDPPQ). Results yielded significant differences in nurses’ attitudes towards suicide and use of substances subscales scores in different academic training groups. Trained nurses consistently outperformed the other untrained group in suicide, loneliness and avoidance, judgment, and ability to help attempted suicidal people, acceptability of assisted suicide and duty to prevent mental illness. In terms of attitudes towards alcohol use, trained nurses showed the highest positive attitude in role legitimacy, task-specific self-esteem, work satisfaction, role security and therapeutic engagement. Untrained nurses showed the highest role adequacy towards drug users. The results of the study provided support for the hypothesis that academic differences in terms of attitudinal skills existed. More specifically, statistical evidence suggested that academically trained nurses on mental health could be differentiated as a function of attitudinal skill and the nature of mental health training that they achieved during their graduation.

Keywords: Attitudes, mental health, nurse education, substances use, suicide, young people


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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/ijchn.v4i2.2009

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