The impact of public health in Norwegian postgraduate programmes of psychiatric nursing.

The purpose of this descriptive study was by means of a questionnaire to obtain data on how 13 nursing schools, offering a postgraduate specialization in psychiatric nursing in Norway, have incorporated a public health perspective into their curricula. Since the mid-1980s, national health policies and Health for All by A.D. 2000 have placed emphasis on decentralization of all health care services, including services for the mentally ill. The Community Health Law of 1984 guarantees all Norwegian citizens such services in their local communities. The schools have traditionally emphasized curative services in hospitals, rather than health promotion and preventive measures at community level. Are the new graduates prepared for psychiatric work at community level? A content analysis of a semistructured questionnaire revealed that a social psychiatric perspective has indeed been incorporated in today's curricula. This was supported by reviewing the required reading lists for each of the 13 schools. Roughly one can say that the schools represent two perspectives: 1) those focusing primarily on relational aspects, and 2) those focusing on relational aspects within a social psychiatric framework.