Most nurse education programmes require their students to undertake so-called 'generic' elements within the curriculum. The aim of these is to enable all students to have a degree of understanding of service users from every field of nursing. Although these elements do not exist in midwifery education programmes, there is no escaping the fact that students from both professions will be required to interact with individuals from these fields during their practice placement and throughout their careers.
What do you really think about mental illness? That is a question only you can answer, but how about the need to be able to communicate with those individuals who have mental health problems? They might be a woman in labour or the mother of a young baby with post-natal depression, the parent of a child in your care, a child or young person under the care of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, an elderly person with enduring mental illness or someone with learning disabilities and a concurrent mental health problem. You might be on placement with a community midwife, in a children's ward or the general Emergency Department, to name but a few ...
It is proposed that all nurses and midwives should be able to communicate with individuals with mental health problems