Psychological interventions are interventions which are non-pharmacological and are meant to address personal, vocational, psychological and relational challenges that are linked to mental health (Goulter, 2015). Some of the psychosocial interventions include cognitive behavior therapy, behavioral therapy, and psychodynamic counseling. Mental health nurses play an important role in the care of patients with mental illnesses. However, they face some challenges.
First, during these psychosocial intervention sessions, the patients may become violent and even harm the nurses. Some instances have been reported where the people with a mental health condition ganged up and assaulted female mental nurses. Another challenge that they face is the large number of patients per nurse. Most of the mental institutions do not have enough nurses to guide the patients through the psychosocial intervention sessions. The nurses may end up being overworked and stressed.
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Emotional attachment is another challenge that these nurses face. Most of the mental nurses become emotionally attached with their mental patients especially during the psychosocial intervention session (Crotty et al., 2016). This greatly affects the nurses especially when the patients are injured and in severe circumstances pass on. Moreover, stigma is a major challenge which these nurses face. Most people view mental nurses as people who are antisocial or people having personality challenges. The mental nurses feel that they do not fit in the other health care setting thus demoralizing them.
Lack of funding is also another problem that mental health nurses face in connection with these interventions (Higgins et al., 2017). Most of the funds from the national government and funding organizations are directed towards other hospitals and not the mental hospitals. In addition, few foundations and organizations organize training programs for the mental health nurses regarding how to offer psychosocial support to the mentally ill. This derails the nurses from developing professionally in this mental health field.
Despite these challenges, mental health nurses can overcome them in some ways. First, the nurses can form peer groups to talk about their experiences at the mental facility to help them cope with the stress they experience at work (Townsend and Morgan, 2017; Huljev and Pandak, 2016). Secondly, the mental health nurses can demand more security personnel at the mental health facility especially during sessions such as the psychosocial support session. However, this security personnel should not be dressed in police uniforms since this may scare the patients and make them behave in an unruly manner. To avoid the stigma that they face as practicing mental health nurses, the nurses need to create mental health awareness in the community (Goulter, 2015). The nurses need to explain to people that mental health is a disease just like other diseases and can affect anyone. Hospitals for mental patients also need to employ more mental helath nurses to deal with the high patient population. Finally, the nurses must try as much as possible not to be emotionally attached to their patients.
References
Bohnenkamp, J.H., Stephan, S.H. and Bobo, N., 2015. Supporting student mental health: The role of the school nurse in coordinated school mental health care. Psychology in the Schools , 52 (7), pp.714-727.
Crotty, M. M., Henderson, J., Martinez, L., and Fuller, J. D. 2014. Barriers to collaboration in mental health services for older people: external agency views. Australian journal of primary health , 20 (3), 250-256.
Downes, C., Gill, A., Doyle, L., Morrissey, J. and Higgins, A., 2016. Survey of mental health nurses' attitudes towards risk assessment, risk assessment tools and positive risk. Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing , 23 (3-4), pp.188-197.
Goulter, N. S. 2015. Patterns of care: Primary research in mental health nursing (Doctoral dissertation, Queensland University of Technology).
Higgins, A., Doyle, L., Downes, C., Morrissey, J., Costello, P., Brennan, M. and Nash, M., 2016. There is more to risk and safety planning than dramatic risks: Mental health nurses’ risk assessment and safety‐management practice. International journal of mental health nursing , 25 (2), pp.159-170.
Huljev, D., and Pandak, T. 2016. Holistic and team approach in health care. Signa Vitae , 11 (2), 66-69.
Maguire, T., Daffern, M., Bowe, S.J. and McKenna, B., 2018. Risk assessment and subsequent nursing interventions in a forensic mental health inpatient setting: Associations and impact on aggressive behaviour. Journal of clinical nursing , 27 (5-6), pp.e971-e983.
Orthwein, W.C., 2017. Psychiatric and mental health nursing: The craft of caring . CRC Press.
Slemon, A., Jenkins, E. and Bungay, V., 2017. Safety in psychiatric inpatient care: The impact of risk management culture on mental health nursing practice. Nursing inquiry , 24 (4), p.e12199.
Townsend, M.C. and Morgan, K.I., 2017. Psychiatric mental health nursing: Concepts of care in evidence-based practice . FA Davis.
