Risk and Protective Factors for Mental Health Nursing: A Case Study

This essay discusses the risk factors and protective factors associated with professional resilience and performance taking the assistance of a case study. It highlights the need for mental health promotion among mental health nurses with plausible options of promoting mental health among them.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
Mental health nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Health care service delivery is not just limited to providing interventions that are
provided to the patients addressing only the particular health issues of the patient. Health and
wellbeing of a patient is extended towards the amalgamation of psychological, emotional and
physical wellbeing as well, and a nursing professional providing care to a patient also needs to
address the overall health and wellbeing needs (Morse, Salyers, Rollins, Monroe-DeVita &
Pfahler, 2012). In context of the mental health nursing, the nursing professional will need to
clearly understand and recognize risk and protective factor associated with the scenario of the
patient and relate them with the key determinants of health to provide adequate interventions and
improve the health outcomes for the same. A mental health nursing professional therefore will
have to pertain mental health and professional resilience to be able to provide adequate care to
the patients (Van Bogaert et al., 2014). This essay will attempt to discuss the risk factors and
protective factors associated with professional resilience and performance taking the assistance
of a case study.
The case study focuses on Tom and Kate who live in a rental property in a friendly
neighborhood with their children Jay and Jess. Tom is a nurse by profession and his shift usually
makes him irritated and agitated as per the information provided by the children. Tom has stated
that the stress of the work and the fact his boss does not like him makes him extremely agitated
and even his professional training of mindfulness interventions and meditation has not been
successful and in most cases, Tom cannot even remember the exercises properly. Along with that
it has to be mentioned that the patent under consideration is also suffering with mild insomnia for
which he is regularly taking valium as prescribed by his general practitioner. Furthermore the
financial state of the family depends entirely on the number of shifts that Tom can work per

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week and hence the couple argues frequently regarding the financial condition of their family.
Mental health can be defined as the essential component that is derived from social cohesion,
productivity, and peace that helps the individuals develop stability in the living environment
encompassing the capital and economic development in the society. According to Van Bogaert,
Dilles, Wouters and Van Rompaey (2014), risk factors are the characteristics or traits that are
pertained within the biological, psychological, family, community, or cultural level which
facilitate negative outcomes in the health status. There are various risk factors that has the
potential to influence the mental health of an individual, and the effect of the risk factors are
generally associated with the different key determinants of health. As per the case study, the two
risk factors affecting the Tom’s mental health are stress and lack of financial security. First and
foremost, according to the list of key determinants of mental health as per the healthy people
2020 framework, professional environment has a huge impact on the mental health of an
individual. As mentioned by Woodhead, Northdrop and Edelstein (2014), the long term mental
health nurses are often subjected to an elevated level of occupational stress. The impact of the
burnout is often manifested as emotional exhaustion, lesser self-accomplishment and
depersonalization, In this case, Tom had to entertain multiple shifts to sustain a family of four on
his own and along with the extreme burnout, and he also had been facing lack of reassurance of
worth in the workplace. The second risk factor affecting his mental health is lack of financial
security, as he had been the only earning member in the family (Van Bogaert, Wouters, Willems,
Mondelaers & Clarke, 2013). Lack of economic resources is one of the greatest determinants of
mental health, the impact of financial instability has a profound impact on the mental health and
wellbeing. As per the case study, Tom also had frequent fights and disagreements with his wife
regarding the lack of financial stability, which was also destroying his sanity. Furthermore, he

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was forced to handle multiple shifts at work due to the financial stability and hence it was also
indirectly adding to his stress; the impact of both of the risk factors was therefore deteriorating
his mental health and leading to behavioral changes such as agitation and irritation (Van Bogaert,
Kowalski, Weeks & Clarke, 2013).
The protective factors can be considered to have an antagonistic impact to the risk factors
and these are characteristic factors that function to reduce the impact of the risk factors. As
mentioned by Bolier et al. (2014), the protective factors are viewed as the positive countering
events that has lower likelihood to the negative outcomes. Among the varied range of different
protective factors that are acting on the mental health and wellbeing on Tom includes
Community involvement and social work skills. As per the case study, Tom has very well
connections with the community and he is also volunteering in the SES or the State emergency
services. The impact of community involvement and social work contribution often has been
reported to have a significant impact of the mental health of people dealing with occupation and
personal stress. As mentioned by Mark and Smith (2012), the impact of being associated with
social support groups has a profound positive impact of mental health and provides the volunteer
with a sense of contentment, belonging and self-worth. It has to be mentioned that social
exclusion is a key determinant of low mental health, especially on the youth. Similarly, the
ability to provide social support can have a similarly significantly positive impact on the mental
health and can also help with reducing some impact of professional burnout or stress and help
build resilience. Similarly, a strong connection with the community provides a sense of
belonging and security to the individual. As mentioned by Green and Leeves (2013), the impact
of community involvement enhances the sense of attachment of the professionals with their

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society, which helps in building resilience of health care professionals and helps them reduce the
impact of their burnout stress and serve the patients.
According to the basic principles of primary health care, the key strategy is to care for
people rather than only emphasizing on addressing the specific health issues of the patients
(Who.int, 2018). Primary health care is therefore associated with providing care, promoting
mental health and coping of the patents along with adhering with evidence based patient centered
practice (Healthypeople.gov, 2018). For the mental health nurses specifically, addressing the
above mentioned interlaced factors is crucial to ensure optimal health and wellbeing of the
mental patients, who are significantly more dependent on the care provider than a patient dealing
with a physical disorder. Similarly, the impact of the professional roles and responsibilities are
also significantly higher for the mental health nurses and often the level of occupational stress is
also higher for them. Hence, in order to maintain optimal professional resilience it is crucial to
engage in mental health promotion for the mental health nursing workforce (Morse, Salyers,
Rollins, Monroe-DeVita & Pfahler, 2012).
As mentioned by Mark and Smith (2012), caring for a mental patient is associated with
more hardships and hurdles when compared to that of a patient with a physical illness. Exploring
further, mental patients tend to be more volatile and have a very unpredictable behavior, hence
the mental health nurses often have to experience a higher degree of occupational stress,
especially emotional burnout. Hence, this often has a significant impact on the mental health and
professional resilience. As mentioned by Van Bogaert et al. (2014), the impact of enhanced
occupational stress and emotional exhaustion reduces the level of job satisfaction and sense of
professional responsibility along with attachment or moral responsibility towards the mental

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patients. As for the mental health nurses, the lack of professional responsibility and moral
responsibility towards patients will fundamentally impact the skills and competence of the
mental health nurses, it is very important to promote mental health among them. It has to be
mentioned that occupational burnout has a terrible impact on the personal life of the mental
health nurses, as observed in Tom’s case. The impact of occupational stress can aggravate
behavioral changes and can affect personal life along with professional life, eventually having a
significant impact on the mental health of the nurses in turn reducing the professional resilience
(Who.int, 2018). Hence, it is crucial for mental health nurses to have the opportunity of periodic
mental health promotion so that they can effectively handle professional or personal stress and
avoid letting the stress, financial burden or any other related mental health determinant impact
their resilience. There are a number of different mental health promoting activities can be
accessed by the mental health nurses such as mindfulness based interventions, yoga and
meditation, and periodic yet frequent one to one counseling sessions can be extremely helpful to
help the nurses deal with their stress maintaining optimal mental health and developing
professional resilience.
On a concluding note, the impact of occupational burnout has a delimiting impact on the
sanity and psychological health of mental health nurses. Furthermore, this impact is often
extended on to their personal lives and aggravate the risk factors to affected mental health. The
case study represented a mental health nurse who had both profession and personal stressors that
acted like a risk factor to his deteriorating mental health which did not only affected his behavior
but also has the impact on their professional resilience. This essay had successfully illustrated the
impact of risk factors along with the two protective factors along with highlighting mental health

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promotional needs among mental health nurses with a few plausible options of promoting mental
health among them.

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References:
Bolier, L., Ketelaar, S. M., Nieuwenhuijsen, K., Smeets, O., Gärtner, F. R., & Sluiter, J. K.
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