Master’s in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing

The study program’s generic objectives:

• Develop autonomy and responsibility for lifelong learning and contributing to the development of Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing.
• Apply knowledge and skills to deepen and understand new and / or complex situations in the area of Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing.
• Solve problems in broad and multidisciplinary contexts related to Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing.
• Develop innovative solutions and issue critical judgments, including reflections on their implications and ethical and social responsibilities in the area of Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing.
• Communicate the disciplinary and professional conclusions resulting from your training course in the course and the knowledge and reasoning underlying them, in a clear and unambiguous way.

Intended learning outcomes (knowledge, skills and competences) to be developed by the students:

• Manage specialized care based on mental health policies, programs and projects, evidence-based practice, specialty quality standards and the profession's ethical-deontological principles.
• Analyze the implication of their attitudes and behaviors in relation to others, based on their personal and professional development process.
• Analyze the health situation of individuals, families and groups based on theories and models of intervention in ESMP.
• To argue the decision-making regarding the diagnosis and intervention in SMP nursing, supported by the best available evidence.
• Conduct psychotherapeutic, socio-therapeutic, psychoeducational and psychosocial interventions with individuals, families and groups, throughout the life cycle, in order to maintain, improve or recover mental health

Insertion of the study program in the institutional educational offer strategy, in light of the mission of the institution and their educational, scientific and cultural project:
The mission of the Lisbon Higher School of Nursing (ESEL) establishes that this is a “center for the creation, development, transmission and dissemination of nursing culture and science, aimed at excellence and innovation”. In this context, the training component is the center of ESEL's activity, so its educational project includes courses at the level of the 3 study cycles: undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees (in collaboration with the University of Lisbon), thus responding to expectations of the large number of candidates for pre- and post-graduate training at ESEL and the needs in human resources, in the area of health.
More specifically at the level of post-graduate training, namely master's degrees, this has had, in recent years, a new increase in clients, which demonstrates the interest of nurses and health institutions and the recognition of the need for more human resources that show knowledge and comprehension and intervention skills at the level of areas of specialty in nursing.
The recent reflection on the offer of the already existing master's degrees at ESEL identified the need for further deepening and scientific autonomy of the various areas of specialization for which ESEL has its own, qualified and specialized teaching staff that will allow the development of these teams and their competences and the reinforcement of the investigation in the scope of the nursing discipline.
The present proposal for a master's degree in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing is a response to the contemporary and emerging needs of individual clients, families, groups and communities in matters of mental health, as reflected in the main epidemiological assessment documents and trends in national mental health (Directorate General for Health, DGS) and international (World Health Organization, WHO).