Nursing students' attitudes toward mental health nursing and consumers : psychometric properties of a self-report scale

There is a paucity of measures suitable for assessing the impact ofeducational and clinical placement strategies on nursing students’ careerpreferences and attitudes toward mental health nursing and consumers ofmental health services. Information derived from such scales could beused to improve existing recruitment strategies to this specialty area andidentify misperceptions held by individuals joining the health care workforce.This article details the psychometric properties of a self-reportscale designed to assess (1) preparedness for the mental health field,(2) attitudes toward mental illness and consumers of mental healthservices, and (3) attitudes toward mental health nursing, including careerpreferences. Results are based on data from a large Victorian study thatexplored the attitudes of 802 nursing students before their clinicalplacement in the mental health field. Principal components analysis withoblique rotation was used to identify the number and composition ofcomponents composing the newly developed scale. Results indicatedseven components composed of relatively homogenous items; most itemswere good to excellent measures of each component. Cronbach a valuesindicated acceptable internal consistency of items composing four of thesuggested components. Overall, findings indicated that the self-reportscale is a useful instrument with acceptable psychometric properties.Descriptive and correlational analyses emphasized the importance ofeducational preparation preplacement and highlighted the potentialfor educational strategies to improve recruitment via improved attitudesand preparedness.