Addressing infection control in pre‐registration mental health nurse training

Health care associated infection has become a health service priority that transcends all clinical areas. Education is commonly cited as the cornerstone of effective practice on the tacit assumption that the knowledgeable practitioner will execute their skills more effectively. Consequently, infection control training has become embedded within the pre‐registration curriculum, however, students undertaking the mental health branch have been critical of an unduly adult focus to the topic, which fails to address their specific educational requirements. An educational intervention based on a problem‐based learning approach was developed to address this contention. The intervention received a three‐way evaluation from students who attended the session, a mental health lecturer/ facilitator and an infection control educator/ adviser. The results suggest that students were able to develop salient material, which recognised the principles of infection control practice, while placing it in the context of mental health nursing. The students gave positive feedback in terms of the mode of teaching and the relevance of the content.