Negotiating Mental Health and Professional Identities: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Nursing Students’ Categorisation, Disclosure, and Support-Seeking

Introduction: This study explores how students develop, negotiate and represent their mental health alongside their professional identities. The aim is to understand how nursing students construct and negotiate their mental health identities in academic and clinical environments. Method: Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this qualitative research employed nine nursing students enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programme at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Arabic, the participants’ native language, and professionally translated to English for analysis. Interviews were analyzed using a six-stage IPA protocol and an integrated coding framework operationalizing concept from Social Identity Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, and Identity Negotiation Theory. Results: The data led to five themes: (1) Navigating the Stigma Boundary: The ‘tough nurse’ imperative, strategic silence or selective disclosure as identity management. (2) Developing the ‘Mental Health’ Label: Repertoires and levels of surveillance/monitoring. (3) The Clinical–Classroom Divide: Contexts affecting identity performance and role transitions. (4) Help-Seeking as Identity Betrayal: The cost to identity of seeking formal help and preference for informal support. (5) Reconciling Personal and Professional Identities: Future self-prototype construction, divergent personal–professional developments, and post-trauma story-telling. Conclusion: Nursing students’ mental health identities are socially constructed and strategically negotiated across contexts. This multi-theoretical model advances understanding beyond deficit-oriented frameworks, showing that help-seeking is limited by identity barriers.