Purpose: This study investigates the impact of a Virtual Reality (VR)-based Mental Health Nursing Practice Simulation (MHNPS) on nursing students’ competency in caring for individuals with mental disorders. Nursing students often face fear, anxiety, and helplessness during mental health (MH) rotations, impeding the attainment of learning objectives in the MH nursing practicum. Therefore, innovative strategies offering practice opportunities are crucial for their competence development. Methods: Using a one-group pretest-posttest repeated measures experimental design, 50 nursing students, having completed at least one MH theory course but not yet engaged in MH clinical practicum, were enrolled. Data collection occurred from October 30, 2022, to January 6, 2023. The VR simulation included six modules covering delusion, hallucination, mania, geriatric depression, adolescent depression with suicidal ideation, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Pre-simulation questionnaires and post-simulation surveys were administered through provided links. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired t-tests to assess changes over time. Results: Immediate and sustained improvements were observed in mental disorder-related nursing knowledge, communication self-efficacy, critical thinking ability, and MH nursing clinical confidence. Attitudes toward mental illness improved significantly post-intervention (t=− 2.22, p=0.031), while the problem-solving process exhibited significant enhancement six weeks later (t=3.87, p< 0.001). Conclusion: The findings affirm the simulation intervention’s effectiveness in enhancing nursing students’ knowledge, self-efficacy, critical thinking, and confidence in MH nursing practice, with no compromise to patient safety. Integrating simulation into MH nursing practicum narrows the gap between theory and clinical practice, elevates MH care quality, and instills confidence in nursing students as professionals. Despite potential subject selection bias in this single-group pre-post intervention study, the program’s comprehensive impact on knowledge, skills, and attitudes suggests opportunities for expanding psychiatric nursing practice capabilities through subsequent studies. Caution is warranted in interpreting results, but the developed program lays the groundwork for advancing nursing students’ capabilities in psychiatric nursing practice.

This study aims to investigate research trends concerning job stress among hospital nurses. Articles about job stress among hospital nurses published in English from 2008 to 2018 were searched. In the first search, 2673 articles were extracted from the MEDLINE, EMBASE, KoreaMed, KERIS, KISS, KISTI, and KMbase databases. Altogether, 154 articles were used in the systematic review and meta-analysis. Thirty-nine variables were explored regarding job stress. Among the major variables, insufficient job control, personal conflict, and burnout had a positive correlation. In contrast, intention to stay, job satisfaction, and personal accomplishment had a negative correlation. In the meta-analysis conducted in relation to a specific conceptual framework, the negative-outcome factors showed significant positive correlations with job stress, whereas the positive-outcome factors showed significant negative correlations with job stress. This study identified factors associated with job stress in nurses through a meta-correlation analysis, and the overall correlation coefficient was relatively high at 0.51. Job factors and moderators had significant meta-correlation coefficients. These results can be utilized in clinical practice and research to help develop intervention programs to relieve job stress among nurses.

Objectives: We constructed a model explaining families’ positive adaptation in chronic crisis situations such as the problematic behavior of elderly patients with dementia and attendant caregiving stress, based on the family resilience model. Our aim was to devise an adaptation model for families of elderly patients with dementia. Method: A survey of problematic behavior in elderly patients with dementia, family stress, family resilience, and family adaptation was conducted with 292 consenting individuals. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results: The communication process, family stress, and problematic behavior of elderly patients with dementia had direct and indirect effects on family adaptation, while belief system, organization pattern, and social support had indirect effects. Specifically, family stress and more severe problematic behavior by elderly patients with dementia negatively influenced family adaptation, while greater family resilience improved such adaptation. Conclusion: Interventions aiming to enhance family resilience, based on the results of this study, are required to help families with positive adaptation. Such family programs might involve practical support such as education on the characteristics of elderly persons with dementia and coping methods for their problematic behavior; forming self-help groups for families; revitalizing communication within families; and activating communication channels with experts.

Improving nursing students’ subjective happiness is germane for efficiency in the nursing profession. This study examined the subjective happiness of nursing students by applying social network analysis (SNA) and developing a strategy to improve the subjective happiness of nursing. The study adopted a cross sectional survey to measure subjective happiness and social network of 222 nursing students. The results revealed that the centralization index, which is a measure of intragroup interactions from the perspective of an entire network, was higher in the senior year compared with the junior year. Additionally, the indegree, outdegree, and centrality of the social network of students with a high level of subjective happiness were all found to be high. This result suggests that subjective happiness is not just an individual’s psychological perception, but can also be expressed more deeply depending on the subject’s social relationships. Based on the study’s results, to strengthen self-efficacy and resilience, it is necessary to utilize strategies that activate group dynamics, such as team activities, to improve subjective happiness. The findings can serve as basic data for future research focused on improving nursing students’ subjective happiness by consolidating team-learning social networks through a standardized program approach within a curriculum or extracurricular programs.

Hwang RI, et al. J Korean Acad Nurs. 2009 Oct;39(5):622-631. http://dx.doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2009.39.5.622