Psych pharm: an interactive learning tools.

MEDICATIONS USED IN MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHIATRIC NURSING ARE COMPLEX, DIFFICULT TO LEARN, AND HAVE POTENTIALLY DEADLY SIDE EFFECTS. Because psychiatric medications are used in all specialty areas student nurses must learn to administer them safely and teach clients and their families about the actions, potential side effects, and potential impact on the recipient. Considering the frequency of mental illness, exposure to specific psychopharmacology is often skimmed over in favor of devoting time to other pharmaceutical classifications (Rappa, Larose-Pierre, McDonald, Massey, & Singh, 2006), leaving students at a disadvantage in clinical practice. Students will encounter these medications, no matter where they work, and will need information about psychiatric medications for standardized academic progress assessment tests. Finding a viable method to successfully convey this information became a necessity. Background The phrase "See a need, fill a need" was popularized after the animated film Robots came out in 2005. A need was identified for a self-directed tool that would allow students to study and review psychiatric medications, but not require large amounts of precious lecture time. Software, training, an Instructional Technology Department fellowship, and expert support were available within the institution to move forward in developing an interactive, computer-based tool to help students understand psychiatric drugs, their complex side effects, and appropriate patient teaching. A search of academic, research, and education databases had yielded no appropriate or usable tool. However, the literature showed that students in the health sciences tend to respond well to online learning activities and find value in the flexibility and utility of the medium (Valaitis, Sword, Jones, & Hodges, 2005). Straight (2008) showed that online instruction and evaluation were effective in reducing medication errors. MERLOT.org (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) provides peer-reviewed online teaching and learning materials for various disciplines in higher education. This interactive online community of peers allows sharing of advice, tools, and expertise among educators. While there were no specific tools registered with helpful strategies related to psychopharmacology, ideas from other successful tutorials were valuable. The design of this project was guided by Mayer's Cognitive Theory of Learning, which finds that learning is more profound when words and pictures are combined. Mayer and Moreno (2003) state that for learning to take place, the student must filter, organize, and integrate new learning into prior knowledge. Learning is enhanced when connections are made between pictorial and verbal symbolic representations (the active-processing assumption). Mayer also reinforces the importance of testing after completing content study to ensure the successful transfer of information. With these findings in mind, an online program was developed to provide students the opportunity to learn on their own time, in their own way, the basics of psychopharmacology. Psych Pharm (http://capone.mtsu.edu/psypharm/) is the result of this effort. Design of Psych Pharm Psych pharm is divided into five modules corresponding to the main classifications of psychiatric drugs: antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antianxiety drugs, and stimulants. Each module includes animated, interactive lectures on disease pathology, drug action, side effects, and suggested patient teaching. Animated drawings of extrapyramidal symptoms demonstrate the serious side effects associated with antipsychotics, and side effect management is reinforced in sections on patient teaching. Students come to associate side effects with the difficulty of taking medications and the challenge of maintaining treatment. A quiz offered at the end of each module reinforces important concepts, and there is a comprehensive final exam with a certificate of completion that can be printed for faculty and/ or student records. …