Relationship between nurses' opinions about mental illness and experience.

To examine the effect of long-term experience on a psychiatric ward on nurses' opinions about mental illness, experimental groups of nursing students (N = 11) and experienced psychiatric nurses (N = 8) and a control group of medical-surgical nurses (N = 8) were compared along the five dimensions of the Opinions about Mental Illness Scale. The medical-surgical and psychiatric nurses were matched for age and education. The experienced psychiatric nurses were found to hold significantly more authoritarian opinions about mental illness; they adhered less to a belief in interpersonal etiology than the other two groups. Compared to the nursing students, the psychiatric nurses held significantly more socially restrictive opinions about mental illness; they adhered less to current mental health ideology. However, age could not be ruled out as a variable in the latter two opinions. Factors which may contribute to opinion change in psychiatric nurses are discussed.