Brief training in child and adolescent mental health: Impact on the knowledge and attitudes of pediatric nurses in Nigeria.

Abstract

Poor knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes of healthcare professionals constitute a significant barrier to child and adolescent mental health care worldwide. This study aimed to determine the effect of a training intervention on the knowledge and attitudes of pediatric nurses to child mental health problems at a Nigerian tertiary hospital. A two group pretest-posttest study design was undertaken. A total of 156 pediatric nurses were recruited, and participants in the intervention group received a brief child mental health training based on the World Health Organization's mhGAP training manual. Knowledge and attitudes to child mental health problems were obtained at baseline, and post intervention. There were no differences in knowledge or attitudes across the two groups at baseline. Post intervention, there was a significant increase in the mean post knowledge scores of the intervention group compared with the control group (t = 3.8, p < .001). The effect size of the intervention was 0.62. There were no significant differences in mean post attitude scores across groups. Incorporating children and adolescents mental health competencies into the training of nurses had a modest effect on their knowledge, but limited effect on their attitudes.