Master in Mental Health and Psychiatry Nursing

The Master’s Degree in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing is part of ESEP’s post-graduate training policy, within the framework of a strategy aligned with its statutory mission. The course is based on the articulation between research, teaching and responding to the health needs of the population.

This Master’s Degree has as its reference the Nursing Order Training Plan for specialised training in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing. The Course, which is also in line with the national plan for mental health and the most recent WHO guidelines for this area, is strongly oriented towards the development of advanced competencies, mainly clinical in nature, focusing on the human responses to health problems and life processes associated with mental health and psychiatry, in order to make evident the contribution of nursing care to the population’s health gains in this area.

The course respects the requirements and principles of analysis of the specialised training in Nursing of the Ordem dos Enfermeiros (OE), namely in what concerns the possibility of later awarding the professional title of Specialist Nurse to the holders of the Master’s Degree in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing. This course will contribute to the development of professionals who constitute a critical mass for the development of autonomous and collaborative activities in the area of mental health nursing, based on the best research evidence. It is intended to be relevant for collaboration in the implementation of mental health policies and in mental health care organisation policies. Finally, it is also intended to be of interest for the design, implementation and evaluation of health projects aimed at the mental health of the population.

Learning outcomes

• To have high knowledge and self-awareness as a person as as a nurse, through experiences and processes of self-knowledge, personal and professional development
• To promote the optimization of mental health of individuals, family and communities;
• To assist individuals, family, groups and community throughout their life cycles, recognizing the different developmental, situational and health-disease transitions experienced by people with mental disorders;
• To help people throughout their life cycle, integrated in the family, groups and community to recover their mental health, mobilizing the specific dynamics in each context;;
• To provide differentiated care of a psychotherapeutic, socio-therapeutic, psychosocial and educational nature to people throughout their life cycle, mobilizing the contexts and dynamics of individuals and/or family members of a group or community, in order to maintain, improve and recover health.