Psych nursing education group activity?

[stargirl018]

Hello everyone, I am a nursing student in my psych rotation. We need to do an assignment where we have a group activity where patients are interactive and actually "get" something from the activity. My activity involves sleep hygiene since most patients in psych hospitals have a big issue with sleep. I have already made a presentation regards to sleep, but am still lacking an activity/game/ interactive part. Any suggestions? thanks so much!

[applesxoranges, BSN, RN]

Wow, our groups were easy. Try turning it into a trivia game or jeopardy?

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Hmm - realistically, typical psych patients are not known for ability to focus on cognitive tasks for very long. This would rule out any sort of trivia or Jeopardy-type activity. A better choice would involve physical activity or tasks that do not require much mental processing - like 'choose the right picture/object'.

[verene, MSN]

You might try a short meditation, breathing exercise, or otherwise calming activity. Something the patients could then apply on their own before bed to help relax and prepare for sleep.

[its_meee]

The group we did during psych rotation involved the season fall. It was last year in October, so we talked about fall colors and showed them large pictures of fall colors, like trees with orange/brown leaves. We talked about pumpkin carving and jumping in leaves. In the group of about 8 or 9 patients only 2 or 3 joined in the conversation, but we were able to get smiles from most of them :)