Pilot of a consumer based anti-stigma mentorship program for nursing students

Purpose Nurses and nursing students often hold stigmatizing attitudes toward patients with mental illness, contributing to poor health outcomes. To address this, direct contact with persons with lived experience in mental illness (i.e. consumers) has been integrated into training curricula. This has shown decreased negative attitudes and increased empathy, but gains are not typically maintained at follow-up. The purpose of this paper is to explore acceptability (i.e. feasibility, process and fidelity) and stigmatizing attitudes of nursing students after the completion of a mentor-based direct-contact curriculum to decrease stigmatizing attitudes toward persons with mental illness. Design/methodology/approach A five-week manualized contact-based mentorship program, with a mentor (i.e. consumer)-mentee (i.e. student) pairs implemented as a supplement to the clinical curriculum for 23 baccalaureate-nursing students. Feasibility (i.e. attendance), acceptability, fidelity and stigmatizing attitudes were evaluated. The Error Choice Test and the Attribution Questionnaire (AQ-9) were used to assess stigmatizing attitudes. Findings Feasibility was 100 percent for face-to-face meetings and participants were satisfied with the integration of the program into their curriculum, indicating high acceptability. A repeated measures ANOVA yielded significant findings for stigmatizing attitudes (F (2, 21)=6.96, p<0.02, eta(2)=0.23). This suggests that a consumer-led mentoring program may reduce mental health stigma within student-nursing populations. The AQ-9 did not yield significant results. Originality/value This study demonstrates capacity for high feasibility and acceptability for an anti-stigma curriculum in this educational context.