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The longer term impact of a novel rural mental health recruitment strategy: A quasi‐experimental study
Author(s) -
Sutton Keith P.,
Maybery Darryl,
Patrick Kent J.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
asia‐pacific psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.654
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1758-5872
pISSN - 1758-5864
DOI - 10.1111/appy.12183
Subject(s) - mental health , work (physics) , rural area , psychology , rural health , gerontology , medicine , psychiatry , mechanical engineering , pathology , engineering
This study examines the longer term impact of the G ippsland M ental H ealth V acation School program, an initiative designed to orientate preregistration allied health and nursing students to rural mental health employment and career opportunities. Methods Student participants from vacation schools held from J uly 2010 to A ugust 2013 were invited to complete on‐line surveys prior to, immediately following and 6 months after the event. Participant rating of Interest in rural work, mental health work and rural mental health work and responses to the student attitudes to rural practice and life questionnaire were analyzed using repeated measure analyses of variance. Results There was a large and significant positive increase in pre to post scores for student interest and attitudes to working in and career in the rural mental health sector. These gains in interest and attitudes fell away by approximately 50% in the six months following the program. The changes in attitudes toward rural work remained significant six months after the program, while attitudes to rural life at six months following the program were not‐significantly different to the preprogram scores. Conclusions The findings highlight that although a short term program designed to attract students to rural mental health work can positively change participants' interest in and attitudes toward rural work and life, the change diminishes over time. However, interest in rural work and career and rural work attitudes generally maintain significant improvement in the longer term. These differential findings have important implications for developing strategies to overcome rural mental health workforce shortages.