Mental health nursing: Difference between revisions

'''Psychiatric nursing''' or '''mental health nursing''' is the branchspecialty of [[nursing]] that cares for people of all ages with [[mental illness]] or mental distress, such as [[psychosis]], [[clinical depression|depression]] or [[dementia]]. Nurses in this area of practice will have received specialistseparate training to assist with these problems. Therefore, there are differences in the way that psychiatric mental health nurses work comparedis todistinct from other branchesspecialties ofin nursing.

As with other branchesareas of [[nursing practice]], psychiatric mental health nursing works within [[nursing theory|nursing models]], utilising [[nursing care plan]]s and seeks to care for the whole person. However, the emphasis in [[mental health]] nursing is on the development of a [[therapeutic relationship]]. In practice, this means that the nurse should seek to engage with the person in a positive and collaborative manner that empowers them to draw on their inner resources to recover. The therapeutic relationship can be divided into three phases:

'''Psychosocial interventions''' are increasingly delivered by nurses in mental health settings and include [[psychotherapy]] interventions such as [[cognitive behavioural therapy]] for depression, anxiety and psychosis and, less commonly, [[psychodynamic]] approaches. Nurses will work with people over a period of time and use [[psychological]] methods to teach the person psychological techniques that they can then use to aid recovery and help manage any future crisis in their mental health. In practice, these interventions will be used often, in conjunction with psychiatric medications. Psychosocial interventions are based on [[Evidence-based medicine|evidence based practice]] and therefore the techniques tend to follow set guidelines based upon what has been demonstrated to be effective by [[nursing research]]. There has been some criticism <ref>{{fncite journal |1 author=Kitson A.| title=Recognising relationships: reflections on evidence-based practice| journal=Nursing Inquiry| volume=9 | issue=3 | year=2002 | pages=179-186}}</ref> that evidence based practice is focused primarily on [[quantitative research]] and should refect also a more [[qualitative research]] approach that seeks to understand the meaning of people's experience.

There has been increasing interest in recent years in '''spiritual interventions'''. The basis of this approach is to look at mental illness or distress from the perspective of a [[spirituality|spiritual]] crisis. Spiritual interventions focus on developing a sense of meaning, [[purpose]] and hope for the person in their current life experience<ref>{{cite book|last=Swinton|first=John|title=Spirituality and Mental Health Care|publisher=Jessica Kingsley|date=2001|id=ISBN 1-85302-804-5}}</ref>. Spiritual interventions involve listening to the ''person's story'' and facilitating the person to connect to [[God]], a greater power or greater whole, perhaps by using [[meditation]] or [[prayer]]. This may be a [[religious]] or non-religious experience depending on the individual's own spirituality. Spiritual interventions, along with psychosocial interventions, emphasise the importance of engagement, however, spiritual interventions focus more on caring and ''being with'' the person during their time of crisis, rather than intervening and trying and ''fix'' the problem. (''see also'' [[humanistic psychology|humanistic]] approach). Spiritual interventions tend to be based on [[qualitative research]] and shares some similarites with the [[humanistic psychology|humanistic]] approach to psychotherapy.

==UK and U.S.US==