Psychiatric nursing is a branch of nursing that combines educational learning and applying the principles of human relations and theories of psychiatric nursing to the treatment and care of people of any age who suffer from mental illness and its effects. Comparing Iran's psychiatric nursing program with other countries makes it possible to identify the educational problems and issues of the curriculum as well as the background factors that have played a role in the failure or success of the program in question. And with their help, it is possible to propose suitable solutions to the determined problems. The purpose of the present study is to compare the curriculum of master's psychiatric nursing in Iran and Duke Nursing School in the United States.

This comparative descriptive study was conducted in the year 2022, in which the important indicators of the master's Curriculum of psychiatric nursing of Iran's nursing schools and Duke University were purposefully selected. The adjustment between the two curricula is done using the Beredy method, which includes four steps: description, interpretation, juxtaposition, and comparison.

The comparison of the Master’s of Psychiatric Nursing Curriculum has similarities and differences in both environments. There are differences in the details of the goals, mission, vision, admission method, system, and curriculum arrangement style in the two universities. The admission of a student in the expert section of psychiatric nursing in Iran is normative and centralized. In the USA, admission is followed by a decentralized pattern, and students post selection criteria. In none of the universities, the specific goals of the field have not been defined. The mission of the Iran program is defined at the national level, but the Duke faculty has a cross-border perspective in expressing its mission.

To improve the quality of community mental health and train knowledgeable and skilled psychiatric nurses to increase the quality of service to people with mental disorders and to maintain and promote mental health in society, the psychiatric nursing education program needs to be reviewed and continuously improved in the areas of student acceptance, position definition. The reality and the role of the graduates are to explain the field's specific goals, review the educational methods, and introduce new ones.

The development of health services in recent years has made it necessary to train nurses especially at the master's level. In so doing, psychiatry nursing was set up in Iran for better nursing care to psychiatric patients and the curriculum was established in the year 2011. In this study, due to the lack of comprehensive evaluation of the adequacy of the new curriculum in this field as an important component, the opinions of educators in the field of psychiatric nursing was solocited.

This qualitative study was performed using Conventional content analysis in the academic year 2018. Participants were 9 psychiatric nursing lecturers with at least 2 semesters of teaching experience from universities across Iran randomly selected to take part in semi-structured oral interviews (30-60 minutes) and continued until data saturation, and open-source codes were extracted by repeated reading of the interviews.

After reviewing the gathered data, 90 primary open codes were extracted, which were divided into 4 categories and 5 sub-categories based on the relationship between the codes. Of these, 25% of the codes were related to the overall structure of the curriculum, 28.7% were related to the educational efficiency, 22.22% were related to the research efficiency and 24.07% of the codes were related to the clinical efficiency of the curriculum.

The results revealed the inefficiency of the curriculum in various aspects of education, research and clinical, which in turn suggests the reevaluation of the program to solve problems based on the views of educators.

Improving the quality and dynamism of higher education programs in the field of nursing, which is parallel practice and knowledge, requires continuous quantitative and qualitative surveys and comparative studies to improve the translation of knowledge in that field. Therefore, this study was carried out with the aim of a comparative study of the educational system of master's degrees in Psychiatric Nursing in Iran and Vanderbilt University in America.

The present study is a comparative descriptive study that was performed using Bereday's four-step model including description, interpretation, proximity, and comparison. The details provided from the Iranian master of degree in Psychiatric Nursing curricula are taken from the website of the Ministry in Iran and the University of Vanderbilt.

Comparing the characteristics and structure of the master's degree in Psychiatric Nursing, both environments have similarities and differences. Education in Iran's Psychiatric Nursing master's degree is full-time, c entirely face-to-face, and often free of charge, and the student's acceptance is done only through a national exam, In contrast, in the American university, education is both full-time and half-time with the use of advanced technologies. Distance education and training are provided and student recruitment is done independently by the university itself and there is no emphasis on the thesis.

The new curriculum of Iran's Psychiatric Nursing Program has been modified towards a more social perspective, but in practice, the provision of social and public services by Psychiatric Nurses due to the limited scope of responsibilities and also the lack of definition of these services is more limited than that of Vanderbilt University in America, and there is a need to improve its content.

One of the most important tasks of a university is to assess their weaknesses and build upon their strengths. As the education and skill level of psychiatric nursing graduates in Iran is often unpredictable, we hope to improve the current curriculum by comparing it to a successful educational program.

The current study compared the psychiatric nursing curriculum in Iran with that of Canada in order to assess differences and suggest improvements.

 This is a descriptive comparative study conducted in 2018. In order to obtain the required information on the psychiatric nursing field, we utilized the Iran Health Ministry website and several Canadian universities offering psychiatric nursing graduate programs. Data was collected through a comprehensive internet search using databases in both Persian and English. We utilized the four steps of the comparison model, also known as Bereday’s four-stage method. Comparative analysis was conducted on the following key areas: the time of starting to approve M.Sc. course, mission, goals, entry requirements, number and similarity of units (theory/practical), and the duration of completing course.

The University in Canada has been established earlier than Iran. Psychiatric nursing programs in both countries have defined missions, goals, job responsibilities. The educational program at Brandon University is focused on community needs. It is possible to complete their program on a part- or full-time basis. Additionally, some courses are optional Admission requirements for Brandon University in Canada include practical psychiatric nursing care experience and a relevant degree; however, in Iran the requirements do not include any background or practical experience. The requirements are limited to a bachelor’s degree in nursing and an entrance exam. The program primarily focuses on theory, and was only offered on a full–time basis.

Comparing the two curriculums, we noted that the Iran educational program still has weaknesses. In order to improve the quality of education, it is suggested that students volunteer to have psychiatric nursing care experience. The curriculum should also include administration, education, and practice. Additionally, a more flexible curriculum should be offered, one that is based on the needs of Iranian society.
 

Assessment is the process of systematic collection، analysis and interpretation of data to achieve the goals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the quality of educational activities of departments of nursing and midwifery faculty of Hamadan University of medical sciences. This cross-sectional study was done in 2009 at the faculty of nursing and midwifery of Hamadan to internally assess the educational status of four departments.. Data was gathered by checklists and questionnaires which based on nine standards. Status of each group in relation standards was detected. We used descriptive and analytical testsand data was processed by SPSS 16 software. The mean score of community health nursing department was 87. 16%، medical surgical nursing department was 86. 92%، pediatric nursing department and management and psychiatric nursing department were 84. 59% and 89. 21% respectievly. The highest score of community health nursing department (%100) was for the standards of courses and curriculum. The highest scores of medical surgical nursing department (97. 6%)، pediatric nursing department (95. 8%) and management and psychiatric nursing department (98. 4%) were for the faculty members’ duties. In all four departments، the lowest score was associated with the standards of graduates (66. 53%- 70. 6%). Status of the studied departments (community health nursing، medical surgical nursing، pediatric nursing and management & psychiatric nursing) in terms of scores gathered on internal assessment was good. However the standards of graduates need more attention in all four departments.

The process of communicating with psychiatric patients by nursing students can indicate the extent of their social interaction in the future. Since communicating with these patients is more difficult than others and is often associated with anxiety، the present study was designed to determine the effect of communication skill with psychiatric patients using Wilkinson- Shimizu method and traditional method on anxious thoughts of nursing students. It was a quasi- experimental study with before-after design. The sample consisted of 51 undergraduate nursing students in Najafabad branch of Azad University of Isfahan who were recruited during 2011-2012 academic year by purposive sampling and then were randomly assigned into either experimental or control groups during their mental health clinical practice. The experimental group received training about Wilkinson- Shimizu method and the control group received training by traditional method. Data was collected by the Persian version of Anxious Thought Inventory (AnTI) and analyzed by SPSS-PC (v. 17) using mean and standard deviation of the groups and paired t-test. The mean score of anxious thoughts significantly decreased in experimental group (p<0/05). In control group، the mean score of anxious thoughts significantly increased (p=0/004). Before and after difference of mean scores of anxious thoughts after training with two methods was significant (P=0/005). The findings revealed that using Wilkinson- Shimizu method for communication with psychiatric patients affects anxious thoughts of nursing students. Therefore، it is recommended that managers of nursing schools pay more attention to teaching these communication skills and clinical practice about communication with psychiatric patients in nursing curriculum.

Identifying and using the strengths of patients, in practice, is a new territory. Today, the need to educate nurses and psychiatric patients about positive psychology in practice and the importance of understanding and focusing on strengths is clear. However, little is known about the strengths the psychiatric patients use and experience. Thus, this study has been designed and conducted in order to understand how people with psychiatric disorders demonstrate their strengths. In the present study, 13 semi‑structured, qualitative interviews with patients and 2 focus groups with nurses were carried out. In addition, a qualitative content analysis was used to identify significant strengths. Based on the results, the four main strengths consisted of: Finding a meaning in daily living, work as enduring strength, entertaining activities, and positive relationship. Patients also reported that health care providers rarely focused on patients’ strengths, and experts confirmed these findings. Our findings indicate that patients’ own strengths are a pivotal factor in getting through their illness from their perspective. Despite the enduring legacy of pessimism regarding psychiatric patients, these people have a repertoire of strengths. Nurses should, therefore, have a greater focus on eliciting and nourishing psychiatric patients’ strengths in their care. It is suggested that the theoretical and practical aspects of patients’ strengths be incorporated in nursing school curricula.

Occupation one is one of the factors that influence mental health and marital satisfaction. The aim of this study was to compare mental health and marital satisfaction of nurses working in psychiatric wards and other wards of the educational hospitals of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences.
This research is a descriptive-analytic study. The study population consisted of married nurses working in psychiatric wards and other wards of educational hospitals of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences. The sample of study consisted of 82 married nurses working in psychiatric wards and 164 nurses from other wards. Data Collection tools were mental health questionnaire SCL-25 and Enrich marital satisfaction questionnaire (1989). Independent t-test for means comparison and Cronbach's alpha coefficients for calculating the reliability of the questionnaire and also for analyze of data SPSS software was used.
54.1% of the subjects were women and 67.9% in all the subjects were aged 31 to 40. 50% of nurses in psychiatric wards and 24.4% of nurses in non-psychiatrist wards had low level of mental health. In general, nurses who worked in psychiatric wards had low level of mental health (P=0.001). 30.5% of nurses working in psychiatric wards and 12.2% of nurses working in other sectors of the degree of marital satisfaction were low. In general, psychiatric nurses from other nurses experience less marital satisfaction (P=0.001).
Results of this study showed that mental health of nurses in psychiatric wards is less than nurses in other wards. Moreover, Psychiatric nurses had lower marital satisfaction than other nurses that it would pay more attention to stressful situations and work with psychiatric patients.

Nursing education in various fields, including psychiatric nursing as a part of the higher education system is developing rapidly in recent decades in the world and also in Iran. Comparing the curriculum of Iranian psychiatric nursing with the curriculum of leading countries can be useful in understanding its strengths and weaknesses and providing solutions for its improvement. This study aimed to compare the curriculum of the psychiatric nursing masterchr('39')s degree program in Iran and Wayne, USA.

This descriptive-analytical study was performed in 2020 at Semnan University of Medical Sciences using Bereday four-stages including description, interpretation, juxtaposition, and comparison.

The comparison of the masterchr('39')s degree program in mental health in both environments has similarities and differences. Admission of students to the masterchr('39')s degree in psychiatric nursing in Iran is criterion-based and in the United States is normative. In none of the universities hasn’t defined specific field of study goals. Studying for a masterchr('39')s degree in mental health in Iran is free of charge and face to face and in the United States is by paying tuition in both In-person training and part-time with a suitable platform for virtual and evidence-based education.

Due to the growing needs of patients with mental disorders, increase in the incidence of these disorders in the current society, the complex nature of mental health interventions and the needs and expectations of students, there is a need to review and improve the conditions of student admission, defining the real position and role of graduates, explaining the specific objectives of the field, reviewing the teaching methods and introducing new teaching methods.

Understanding how novice nurses perceive their career in the psychiatric ward can be helpful for nurse educators and managers to gain insight into psychiatric nursing care and adding applicable knowledge to the development of support strategies for this group. The aim of this study was to describe and illuminate experiences of new graduated nurses working at a psychiatric ward in an Iranian context. A descriptive phenomenology has been chosen. Participants with baccalaureate degrees in nursing were selected purposefully and they all had less than 6 months of work experience in psychiatric wards beforehand. The study was conducted at the Razi Hospital in Iran. Data were collected through unstructured individual in-depth interviews and analyzed according to the Colaizzi method by means of Husserlian phenomenology. Three main themes were found in this study, of which six sub-themes were constructed as follows: Being in the world of fear and complaint, which has been abstracted by having mixed feelings of confl ict and compliant on entry to the psychiatric ward, doubt about adequacy of being a psychiatric nurse and working in psychiatric ward and a frightening and non-supportive environment; A sense of imprisoned and confi ned, which has been constructed by different experience with different environmental milieu in psychiatric ward, as a lock sense; Becoming a psychiatric nurse, which has been constructed as a sense of usefulness, a sense of sympathy and compassion for patients and a sense of professional identity. This study identifi ed areas that require modifi cation by providing insight into lived experiences of beginners’ nurses as the value in psychiatric ward. New graduated nurses may face negative perceptions and feelings due to confrontation with a new environment, patients and colleagues as well as shortcomings in the preparation.