Group Therapy Simulation in PMHNP Education: A Pilot Event

Objective: Growing mental health issues and workforce shortages highlight the need to train competent psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners. Limitations in clinical placements and curriculum demands hinder psychotherapy training and exposure. Educators created a simulation to boost graduate students’ exposure to group therapy. Methods: While simulations improve psychiatric education, costs and staffing needs pose sustainability challenges. To address this, this pilot used volunteer undergraduate nursing students portraying simulated patients in place of paid standardized patients. Results: Students found the pilot valuable, and it showed increased sustainability with unexpected benefits for volunteers. Conclusions: Future research should explore opportunities for expanded mental health clinical simulation exposure, outcomes, scalability, and best practices for the use of undergraduate volunteers.