The Effect of a Skill-Training Model on Nursing Students' Skills in Communicating with Mental Patients

Introduction: The effects of teaching communication skills using a specific model on nursing students' skill in communicating with mental patients has less been a subject of investigation. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a communication skills' teaching model on nursing students' communicating with mental patients. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted as pretest-posttest design, on 49 senior nursing students in two groups of control (24 students) and experiment (25 students). After performing the pretest of communication skills, both groups spent 12 days of clinical education for communication skills. The experiment group was taught using the mentioned model and the students of control group had the traditional training. After finishing the educational course, students' progress in communication skills in the two groups was compared. An integrated checklist was used for gathering data. Students' skills in interviewing mental patients were observed and the results were analyzed by SPSS software using Wilcoxon and MannWittney tests. Results: Both methods of training improved students' communication skills with mental patients. Comparing the two methods, the mentioned training model showed a significantly higher level of improvement in nursing students' communication skills. Conclusion: In spite of the significant effect of the mentioned model on improving nursing students' communi-cation skills, due to the lack of enough evidence in this regard, conducting further studies in this area is recommended.