Using standards of practice and key clinical points for teaching psychiatric--mental health nursing.

To optimize opportunities for clinical experiences in psychiatric-mental health nursing education, it is essential that the approach be directed to the student-patient interaction. Clinical experiences, which rely on the assumption that spending time in a facility prepares students for practice, is unacceptable. One approach to correcting the problem is to develop comprehensive clinical guidelines that direct student experiences and assure mastery of identified outcomes. The authors focus on the use of key clinical points to direct student experiences in psychiatric-mental health nursing.