The condition of mental
illness is actually an equal-opportunity illness, affecting people from every
race, age, gender, economic status, etc., people who are suffering from some
kinds of mental illness, in general need assistance to cope up with their daily
life.
This paper in
particular is laying emphasis over the roles and responsibilities of a nurse in
dealing with patients with mental illness. The core approach is to find out the
basic characteristic of this profession and the contribution that one can make
in creating a balanced space for all those people who are treated specially in
the society. Moreover, the basic categories of Mental illness are also explored
in the process.
This paper has been
distributed under various subheadings. These are noted as follows-
2.Roles
and Responsibilities in Nursing
3.Governing,
Awarding Guidelines
4.Comparison
with Other Professionals
5.Multidisciplinary
Teams
5.1
Activities
5.2
Operations
6. Legislative Policy and Practice
All these subheadings
are structured in order to attain a better understanding about nursing issues
related to mental illness and the kind of professional assistance that one can
offer in this sector.
1.Recent
developments in Nursing Profession
In
recent days, there is enormous seriousness noted in the field of nursing people
with mental illness. Some of the recent developments concentrating over nursing
profession lay importance over development of skill with holistic recovery.
This assessment has some risk towards inform mode of clinical judgment, along
with intervention of psycho-social instances and attaining leadership
attributes in both clinical and professional domains. For a well defined status
in of nursing profession, there are many current postgraduate degrees added by
continuous development of professional programmes. In recent times, all such
programmes are subject to get evaluated in order to confirm that they relevant recovery
values and principles are aptly followed. There also the addition of interdisciplinary
training over the process of recovering professional proceeding and principles at
both undergraduate and further at the postgraduate level. Emphasis are led upon
the culture and psychology of learning throughout life and the same is
initiated for promoting as well as developing services in the mental health domain.
These services are recently made integral part of standard package of insurance
under Universal Health Insurance and comprise of community development in
reference to the teams that are initiating mental health patients. The aim is
to create prompt and early access towards the delivery of more determined services
for people from all ages. This is further generated with improved integrated
module of services related to primary care.
2.Roles
and Responsibilities in Nursing
The
role of a nurse in offering assistance to a person with mental illness is a
matter of great responsibility. It needs excessive amount of carefulness and
patience. This is definitely not a profession for just anybody. Enough
dedication and knowledge is needed to be a nurse to a mentally ill patient. Responsibilities
initiated by a mental health nurse must be backed up with right nursing
qualification and experience. As for
instance, there are LPNs (or the Licensed Practical Nurses) who offer assistance
in terms of dispensing medication and also personal care to the mentally ill
patient. There are highly qualified RNs (or the Registered nurses) who are
capable to examine and further perform assessments and can even assist in counseling
patients and people and families close to the patients. The nursing
practitioners for mental health follow similar kinds of duties as any psychiatrists.
They are efficient in diagnosing respective conditions, making arrangements for
psychotherapy and even are capable of prescribing right medication. There are
some professional nurses, dealing with mental health and specializing treatment
from children to adults. There are some who can also handle the cases with
eating disorders, memory problem, etc.
However,
irrespective of any proficiency in a specialized domain, the nursing profession
for mental health conditions is about dealing with all kinds of disability and
making provision for positive changes in the lives of the patients.
3.Governing,
Awarding Guidelines
Under
the initiation of policy related to contemporary social and health care
provisions, there are the demands noted in reference to the health of the
respective population health and further the process of service plan. According
to the documents under National policy, like those of Report of the Commission
on Nursing, maintained by Government of Ireland (1998), there is the strategy
for maintaining national health, that is termed as Quality and Fairness: A Health System for You (DoHC 2001) and further
research initiated by Begley et al. (2010) referred to the development of
advanced practice in nursing and posts of specialist in the department of
mental health.
Moreover,
World Health Organisation and Wonca (2008) states that RPNs who are into the work
in a healthcare system are developing with biomedical approach towards the
domain of mental illness, which is enlisted as integral sector to the
wide-ranged healthcare system. The emphasis is more towards biomedical persuasions.
For reformed nursing practices in the mental healthcare sector, there were
provisions created for support towards recovery-oriented functionalities.
Management and review over organisational culture for refined ‘recovery
orientation’ as well as plan for such frameworks were developed in reference to
the entire.
Formation
of National Council for the Professional
Development of Nursing and Midwifery in the year 1999, offered the
dominance of population-oriented healthcare approaches and with special
preferences to the mental healthcare services. Many care-giving models were
reformed in accordance to the epidemiological as well as demographic profile of
the patient. Necessary service requirements were enlisted and advanced nursing practices
were developed under the supervision of Clinical Nurse Specialist (or the CNS)
and Advanced Nurse Practitioner (or the ANP) (NCNM, 2010).
4.Comparison
with Other Professionals
Since,
mental health is inclusive of wide-ranged elements; its scope of practice
varies greatly in reference to different professionals in this field. Like any
nurse in the field of mental illness, the Psychiatrists are those physicians in
the mental health sector, who specialize as well as professionally certified in
the act of treating people with mental illness. However, the difference is in
grade of studying and learning more and for longer duration against any nurse. They
use biomedical approaches in handling mental disorders and uses medications for
curing. The professionals with clinical psychologist researches and implements psychology
in order to understand their problems, relieve and further prevent psychology-based
dysfunction or distress to improve subjective development of the person.
There
are also professional similarities between nurses from mental health domain and
psychotherapy and the profession of counseling psychology. All these
professionals aim in assisting people with mental illness and offers them the
status of being “moderate” or "normal". The later however, is dealing
with people who already have some control, but fir a nurse the instances of mental
illness are in general, severe and sometimes full of risks.
The
role of behavior analysts is vital as they initiate services to all those
clients who have developmental disabilities, substance abuse and above all mental
illness. This is a kind of profession that offers evidences based on applied analysis
of behavior, behavior therapy, and behaviorism. However, in case of nurse
dealing with mental illness are more practical in offering assistance t he
patient than the doctors in particular.
5.Multidisciplinary Teams
A
very notable statutory functions initiated by Mental Health Commission (2006) is
in the process of fostering and further promoting higher modes of standards of
best practices and care in the delivery of nursing and other services while dealing
with mental health conditions. The Commission created some working groups in
order to investigate complex issues related to the mental health concerns. Multidisciplinary
teams stand for “members of different
professions working together” (ibid, p.10). According to Jefferies &
Chan (2004), it is
“the main mechanism to ensure truly
holistic care for patients and a seamless service for patients throughout their
disease trajectory and across the boundaries of primary, secondary and tertiary
care”.
Moreover, Carrier & Kendall
(1995) state it as,
“a group of people with
complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals,
and approach, for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”
In
reference to nursing profession, the concern is more about developing empowered
mental or psychiatric health to attain full participation of multidisciplinary
teams. The members of the teams are liable to offer contributions, strategic
planning and research in order to prevent poor mental health. The nurses keep a
track of health policy added by the popularizing information among public about
all kinds of psychiatric nursing responsibilities and creates the hope for futuristic
progression in this field of nursing profession.
5.1 Activities
The
activities of a multidisciplinary team is to lay focus on the process of
assessing needs and demands of those people who are suffering from mental
illness. The sole responsibility lies in terms of creating appropriate care
plan and further making it suitable as per the arrangements of medication and
nursing. The team needs to lead and manage suitable care-giving provisions to
the patients. They are also responsible for monitoring aspects of quality-check
while offering care. Maintenance of contact and regular correspondence with the
patients are some of the integral activities that must be maintained by the
team. Basic principles that are followed by this team in initiating relevant
activities of offering assistance to the mentally ill patients is about being
sensitive and dedicating services. Creation of sub-teams and home-based nursing
facilities are considered by many teams for an effective result-oriented
outcome.
5.2 Operations
According
to Barker and Walker (2000) composition of multidisciplinary teams and related
operations of the teams are strictly related to the process of creating
connection with the mental health patients and their acquaintances, friends and
families for the development of perceived hurdles and crises of the patient. The
members of the staff are responsible for working as a team and follow necessary
pre-determined norms for the proper functioning of the team. Mixture of
adequate skills in the team offers higher range of interventions ad relevantly
leads to strong connection and links with all the other domains and professions
dealing with mental health services. The activities of the multidisciplinary
team can turn effective only when the members are having adequate and good
amount of general knowledge about all the possible local resources that they
can use for the accomplishment of their plan. The participation of the local
population is very vital in this reference. It is their explicit and clear
concerns that can support in offering right kinds of assistance to the care-giving
teams. The cases of mental illness are in general integrated conditions of
social care-givers and medically trained staff members, especially the nurses
in this domain. The team work concentrates in offering absolute notes and
overall clinical assistance to the respective group of patients.
6. Legislative Policy and Practice
Follow
ups related to the laws and regulations determined by the government are very
necessary for any multidisciplinary team. The team must have adequate knowledge
and understanding about administrative and management regulations as set for
their operations and activities (Mental Health Commission, 2006, p. 23). Comprehensive
knowledge about the laws of mental health and legislation for the same must be
followed strictly by the team. The policy and practices of multidisciplinary
team in dealing with mental illness; must be kept in collaboration with civil
rights, along with the laws of detention and compulsion in particular.
Conclusion
Eventually, it has been
noted that the role and responsibilities of a nurse in the field of handling
psychiatric or mentally ill patient is very vital. It is only through excessive
knowledge, personalized dedication and right kind of knowledge about the
government declared legislation, that the right kind of activities can be
accomplished. Every step led by the nurse in this domain demands excessive
patience and intelligence. This profession is definitely a great profession,
but demands constant attitude of learning and handling patients with all
tenderness. The risk related to this profession is very high, but with the
cooperation of members from the multidisciplinary professions, the role turns
more effective. It is necessary that the nurse dealing with mentally ill
patient should e literate, professionally well trained and above all smart and
dedicated enough in accomplishing the duties.
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