Methods: A plan was developed to collaborate with the theater department to offer undergraduate theater students an opportunity to practice acting skills while taking an independent study. These theater students, trained as Standardized Patients (SPs), engaged with senior nursing students enrolled in a psychiatric mental health nursing clinical course in a baccalaureate program allowing these students to practice communication skills. Initial brainstorming meetings were held between psychiatric mental health nursing and theater faculty to discuss the possibility of partnering to provide learning opportunities in their respective disciplines for both nursing and theater students. Implementation of this project started with the creation of scenarios that met the learning outcomes for each discipline. Case scenarios included portrayal of patients with a variety of mental health diagnoses including paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar mania, depression with suicidal ideation, substance abuse, dementia, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Theater students were hand-selected by the theater faculty and invited to enroll in a specially created independent study course in which they became SPs. Acting could be studied and practiced in this course. After the initial training by nursing faculty, each actor met throughout the semester with theater faculty to review video-recordings of the SPEs and to complete assignments related to theater course work. Over the course of the semester, every nursing student enrolled in the psychiatric mental health clinical course was assigned to engage in four different Standardized Patient Experiences (SPEs) as a part of their clinical hours. Each SPE lasted 10-15 minutes and was video-recorded in our simulation center for later play-back and viewing by the nursing student. This allowed the nursing student to self-reflect and to complete post-assignment learning activities including a review of strengths and limitations, identification of therapeutic communication techniques, and priority nursing diagnoses with a plan of care.
Results: Nursing and theater faculty met on a regular basis to evaluate the project. This process has been successfully implemented for the past two years. With ten theater students completing the independent study and 180 nursing students engaging in interactions with SPs, improvements in communication skills for nursing students have been seen. Both nursing and theater students offered positive comments about their learning experience. Nursing faculty also provided positive feedback regarding the SPEs. This included improvements in nursing student confidence levels as they care for patients in the hospital and community mental health settings and use of therapeutic communication skills with patients and families.
Conclusion: Because this is a pilot project, additional research should be conducted to further explore the effectiveness of learning for both nursing and theater students.