The topic that we learned in this week is “The clinical experiences of mature mental health nursing students in Ireland ”.

      From the study we know mental health nursing has traditionally attracted a high level of mature applicants and this trend has not altered since the introduction of the Bachelor in Science in nursing programme. The literature suggests that for many mature students, entering into nurse education is the fulfilment of a lifelong ambition. However, in reality they face many challenges not always shared by their younger classmates. The aim of this paper is to explore the clinical experiences of mature students in the field of mental health nursing. A qualitative descriptive method was utilized to guide the research with a focus group being the method of data collection. Current mental health mature nursing students in one urban university were invited to participate. Data were analysed using content analysis.

       As a result, the findings of this study revealed that the mature students enjoyed and valued their clinical exposure. Although they were treated differently by registered nurses, this was not always perceived negatively as it often afforded them the opportunity for greater learning at an earlier stage of the course. Whilst this is encouraging, caution must be exercised in delegating tasks to mature students that may be beyond the students’ scope of practice. The mature students in this study regarded the course as their last opportunity to fulfil their life long ambition to become psychiatric nurses. This increased their motivation to succeed and to remain in the profession once qualified. Consequently, current and future mature students provide a sustainable solution to qualified nursing staff shortages and they should be actively recruited into psychiatric nursing programmes. Even though this study is relatively small, it does highlight the importance of clinical placements in pre-registration nursing programmes.