A Multimodal Approach to Teaching Affirming Mental Health Care.

Background: To help reduce mental health disparities in the transgender and gender diverse (TGD) population, there is a need to equip future psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs) with affirming care competence.

Method: This study evaluated a multimodal education program that combined eLearning with two virtual standardized patient (SP) simulations to teach PMHNP students to provide affirming mental health care to TGD people.

Results: Slight increases in knowledge and attitudes were not practically applicable. Most of the participants demonstrated affirming care competency in both simulations. Participant perceptions of the simulation design indicated broad agreement that all criteria were important, that most were evident, and revealed an opportunity to improve direct facilitator feedback.

Conclusion: eLearning with virtual SP simulation can help develop PMHNP students' competence to provide affirming care for TGD people. The findings provide valuable insights for graduate nurse educators designing similar programs and lay a foundation for further research.