Pre‐Registration Nursing Student Experiences of International Mental Health Clinical Placement: A Scoping Review With Relevance to the Australian Context

TL;DR

This review explores the experiences of international nursing students during mental health clinical placements, highlighting a lack of research specific to Australia.

Contribution

The study identifies a gap in understanding international nursing students' mental health placement experiences in Australia.

Findings

No literature was found specifically on Australian international nursing students' mental health placements.

Themes like fear, skill development, and support needs emerged from global studies.

The review calls for more research to improve recruitment and support for international students in mental health nursing.

Abstract

Clinical placement is an essential part of Australian pre‐registration nursing degrees and is mandated for all students to become registered as nurses. Clinical placement in mental health settings is important for preparing students to work with individuals with mental ill health and mental health conditions, with positive experiences during mental health placements reported to increase the desirability of mental health nursing as a career pathway. Given Australia's reliance on international students in the tertiary sector and nurses born in countries other than Australia, there is a dearth of research exploring the experiences of international pre‐registration nursing students on mental health clinical placement. This scoping review aimed to explore existing literature examining international student experiences of mental health clinical placements. Database searches of the CINAHL, Emcare, MEDLINE, Scopus and PsycINFO databases found no literature specifically examining the experience of international nursing students in Australia on mental health clinical placements. The search was expanded to conceptually analyse published papers (n = 25) exploring nursing student experiences of mental health nursing placement from around the world. Themes that emerged were fear and apprehension, skills, knowledge and attitude changes, managing own emotions and uncomfortable experiences, translating theory to practice, and opportunities for active learning and support needs. Our review highlights an urgent need for research into the experiences of Australian pre‐registration international nursing student experiences of mental health clinical placements, both to understand the challenges this student cohort experiences, and to improve the recruitment of international nursing students to the mental health nursing specialty.

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