This course provides the student with knowledge related to alterations in psychological well-being and the subsequent behavioral responses of clients of various ages. Students develop and analyze therapeutic nurse-patient relationships across the lifespan.

• Describe mental health disorders across the lifespan and the role of nursing in their care.
• Demonstrate effective communication skills
• Describe typical medications, actions uses, side effects used in the treatment of common mental health disorders.
• Demonstrate competence in performing a nursing assessment using Orem’s SCD Theory to organize the nursing psychiatric assessment data.
• Provide culturally competent nursing care to clients with various mental health conditions in the clinical setting
• Demonstrate beginning level skills in critical thinking, decision making, collaboration and coordination of care
• Demonstrate appropriate interactions with a multidisciplinary health care team in a manner that is appropriate for a beginning level nurse
• Demonstrate professional behaviors of accountability, responsibility and self-direction.