There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?

One in five Australians has a diagnosable mental illness and the impact of the illness on the individual, their family, and the community is significant. Since comprehensive nursing was introduced in the 1980s there have been repeated concerns raised regarding the preparedness of graduates from Aust...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wynaden, Dianne
Format: Journal Article
Published: Blackwell Publishing 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40181
_version_ 1848755796593082368
author Wynaden, Dianne
author_facet Wynaden, Dianne
author_sort Wynaden, Dianne
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description One in five Australians has a diagnosable mental illness and the impact of the illness on the individual, their family, and the community is significant. Since comprehensive nursing was introduced in the 1980s there have been repeated concerns raised regarding the preparedness of graduates from Australian undergraduate nursing programs to care for people who have a mental illness. In 2009, despite a recent comprehensive national review of the mental health/ illness content in pre-registration curricula, these concerns remain. The nursing profession must have a responsibility to the global community to ensure that registered nurses are educated to meet evolving health challenges and the needs of the health consumer in the 21st century. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the prevalence and impact of mental illness on health care outcomes in all settings and to challenge the profession to acknowledge that mental health nursing content must be a core area of all undergraduate curricula. A nationally coordinated response to address the long standing identified deficits in the educational preparation of comprehensive nurses is now a priority to ensure that nurses remain a major stakeholder group in the delivery of health care and key health informants and decision makers within the global health care arena.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:02:00Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-40181
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:02:00Z
publishDate 2010
publisher Blackwell Publishing
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-401812017-09-13T16:00:27Z There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century? Wynaden, Dianne undergraduate curricula mental illness burden of disease comprehensive nursing health consumer One in five Australians has a diagnosable mental illness and the impact of the illness on the individual, their family, and the community is significant. Since comprehensive nursing was introduced in the 1980s there have been repeated concerns raised regarding the preparedness of graduates from Australian undergraduate nursing programs to care for people who have a mental illness. In 2009, despite a recent comprehensive national review of the mental health/ illness content in pre-registration curricula, these concerns remain. The nursing profession must have a responsibility to the global community to ensure that registered nurses are educated to meet evolving health challenges and the needs of the health consumer in the 21st century. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the prevalence and impact of mental illness on health care outcomes in all settings and to challenge the profession to acknowledge that mental health nursing content must be a core area of all undergraduate curricula. A nationally coordinated response to address the long standing identified deficits in the educational preparation of comprehensive nurses is now a priority to ensure that nurses remain a major stakeholder group in the delivery of health care and key health informants and decision makers within the global health care arena. 2010 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40181 10.1111/j.1447-0349.2010.00671.x Blackwell Publishing restricted
spellingShingle undergraduate curricula
mental illness
burden of disease
comprehensive nursing
health consumer
Wynaden, Dianne
There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?
title There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?
title_full There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?
title_fullStr There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?
title_full_unstemmed There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?
title_short There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st Century?
title_sort there is no health without mental health: are we educating australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st century?
topic undergraduate curricula
mental illness
burden of disease
comprehensive nursing
health consumer
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40181