Issues in Mental Health Nursing

Persons with severe mental ill-health die early from preventable physical ill-health. Registered nurses in psychiatric outpatient care play a key role in improving persons' physical health, and it is important to examine how they view their responsibility, their experiences of care, and the obstacles they meet in providing person-centred care. The purpose of this study was to explore registered nurses' experiences of caring for persons with mental ill-health and somatic comorbidity in psychiatric outpatient care, using qualitative content analysis to analyze data from semi-structured interviews...

Psychiatric Day Hospitals offer time-limited active treatment programmes that are therapeutically intensive, coordinated, and with structured clinical services within a stable environment. No previous studies have described patients' experiences of recovery-oriented care at a Psychiatric Day Hospital in a Swedish or Nordic healthcare context. The aim of the study was to explore patients' experiences of a Psychiatric Day Hospital with focus on patient recovery. A qualitative method was used; 12 in-depth interviews were performed with patients all analysed with content analysis...

Severe dissociative states involving the experience of being in parts, typically associated with diagnosis such as dissociative identity disorder and other specified dissociative disorders, continue to be a controversial and rarely studied area of research. However, because persons with severe dissociative states are at risk of being harmed instead of helped within psychiatric care, their experiences of living with such states warrant further examination, while innovative ways to include them in research remain necessary...

Compassion fatigue is the cost of caring for others in emotional pain where the helping professional absorbs the trauma of those they help and cannot detach emotionally at the end of the day. Stressful and perceived unsupportive work environments may leave the caregiver at a heightened risk for compassion fatigue. To study the level of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction experienced by mental health nurses. A descriptive, cross-sectional, electronic survey design was utilized. The Professional Quality of Life Scale-5 was used...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is widely regarded as the most severe childhood behavioral disorder. However, society's lack of awareness regarding neurodevelopmental disorders, like autism, has led to a limited understanding of their profound impact on children and their families. Challenges include unique sensory experiences, communication and social interactions, strain on familial relationships, emotional toll on parents, and educational hurdles, which can significantly impact the well-being of individuals and their families...

Autistic students experience elevated rates of school exclusion, whether this be through expulsion, suspension, informal suspension, refusal of enrolment, or school refusal. This exclusion can come about from a range of factors, including sensory or cognitive overload, a lack of training in neurodiversity for teachers, an absent sense of safety by the student at school, or poor attitudes towards the inclusion of autistic students in schools. The impacts of this exclusion on parents can be logistical, financial, and psychological, with a range of mental health outcomes...

The nurse role on an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team requires a specialized set of skills in psychiatric community-based care. While the ACT model has existed for fifty years, no nationally recognized standard curriculum to train ACT nurses has been developed. The ACT Nursing Project described in this paper aimed to create a competency-based on-board training program using the Developing a Curriculum (DACUM) method. Eight ACT nurses from three states served as the expert panel to create a DACUM chart detailing the full set of nine duties and 127 tasks required of ACT nurses...

Pre-registration nursing education has long moved away from preparing nurses with mental health specialisation to nurses with comprehensive knowledge and skills. However, the consumers' experiences of comprehensive-prepared nurses and their nursing care has not been widely explored. This paper reports on a study with consumers to explore their experiences with comprehensive-prepared graduate nurses and the nursing care that they provide in acute mental health settings. An exploratory qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was chosen as the research method...

The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experience and meaning of being a 'sex offender' for the individual who is reintegrating into society, considering issues associated with self-perception, perception of others, stigma and humanization. Fourteen male adults were invited to participate in this hermeneutic phenomenological study. Data analysis was completed using an iterative process as described by van Manen. Five major themes were identified: exposed secret leads to humiliation; being considered a sex offender is living in fear of the unknown; stigma and shame consume the identity of the individual charged with a sexual offense; reframing and "leveling" of the crime are coping strategies; and the path toward healing and forgiveness is complex...

The prevalence of mental health disorders in primary care is high and challenges related to the COVID pandemic warrant further training of the family nurse practitioner. A telehealth simulation learning experience that included common primary care diagnoses in mental health-general anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder-was incorporated into a non-clinical behavioral health course. Formative evaluation provided by licensed nurse practitioners confirmed the need for improving interviewing techniques, engaging clients, and promoting safety among this population...

This content analysis seeks to extend what is already known in nursing and public health about the stigma attached to mental illness, and further understand the following evaluation question: How do members of communities targeted by Make It OK, a community initiative to reduce mental illness stigma, describe that stigma? The analysis of responses to open-ended questions included in a community-based survey followed deductive and inductive coding based on published frameworks and survey responses. The domains of stigma were categorized as actions toward people living with mental illness, beliefs about mental illness, and beliefs about people living with mental illness...

Undocumented migrants are often in a position of extreme vulnerability and experience many barriers to accessing mental health care. It is crucial that health professionals understand this and quickly establish trust and respect. If the stressful living conditions that contribute to the distress of undocumented migrants are recognized, compassionate and trauma-informed care is enhanced. In this regard, it is important that health professionals understand the fear of being expelled from a country. This paper discusses problems that arise when health professionals interact with undocumented migrants and the need to quickly convey recognition to establish trust and respect...

Communication in healthcare extends beyond patient care, impacting the work environment and job satisfaction. Interprofessional communication is essential for fostering collaboration, but challenges arise from differences in training, roles, and hierarchies. The study aimed to explore psychiatric outpatient clinicians' experiences of interprofessional communication and their perceptions of how the communication intersects the organizational and social work environment of healthcare. Qualitative research involved focus group interviews with clinicians from five psychiatric outpatient units in Central Sweden, representing diverse professions...

This study aimed to examine the effect of an emotion recognition and expression program (EREP) on the alexithymia, emotion expression skills and positive and negative symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. The study had a non-randomized, quasi-experimental design including a pretest, post-test, and follow-up test. It was conducted with 36 patients with schizophrenia ( n  = 18 intervention group, n  = 18 control group) who regularly visited a Community Mental Health Center (CMHC) in Türkiye and participated voluntarily...

Self-care is important in addiction recovery, and peer recovery coaches (PRCs) play key roles in recovery. This qualitative study explored self-care factors for individuals recovering from alcohol use disorder and the role of PRCs in supporting these individuals' self-care. Individual interviews with five PRCs and five workers in community addiction management centers in South Korea were performed. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Two categories and six subcategories were derived. The two categories were "elements of self-care: preparation and practice for a new way of life" and "the roles of PRCs: recovery facilitators with differentiated competencies...

Mental health risk-assessments are an important part of nursing in mental health settings, to protect patients or others from harm. Even so, nurses often have difficulty identifying patients posing a credible risk (either to self or others), so guidance is recommended. However, despite an extensive and growing body of risk-oriented literature, comparatively little expands upon contemporary knowledge of nurses and patient risk assessment. Therefore, it remains unclear how nurses understand risk and undertake their risk assessments...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Primary care is crucial to the health of people with mental illness. However, there is limited information on their reported engagement in this setting. This study surveyed 100 people with mental illness who had a general practitioner or a general practitioner and a case manager from a tertiary mental health service to determine their engagement level with their GP and what interventions they received to manage their health. Forty-four per cent had their psychotropic medications primarily prescribed by their GP, and 58% reported visiting their GP for physical health problems...

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is not a new concept. Despite TIC being at the forefront of international acute public mental health services policy, and researched since 2006, implementation has been hampered. This paper reports findings from a scoping study examining clinical and lived experience workers experience of TIC in Acute Adult Public Mental Health Services. In this scoping study five databases and grey literature were scanned in 2021 and updated in 2023, to address the question: What is known about TIC concerning the clinical and mental health lived experience workforce in the acute adult public mental health service? Forty-six papers met the inclusion criteria...