Recovery Approach and Mental Health Nursing

Mental Health Nursing
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Recovery approach:
In case of Annabelle, recovery approach should not be focused merely upon symptoms.
However, it should be focused on person as a whole. In mental illness patients like Annabelle
recovery is possible; however, its attention should be on the approach of recovery and should
not focus solely on the destination. Nursing professionals should ensure that optimism and
commitment of different people like healthcare professionals, family members, public health
teams, social services and community members (Lim et al., 2017).
Recovery process of patients like Annabelle should be influenced by expectations and
attitudes of patient. However, in case of Annabelle, it is difficult for the nurse to understand
her expectations and her attitude is not cooperative to take part in her recovery. Annabelle is
not opening up about her problems. Hence, it is difficult for the nurse to understand her exact
problem. It would be difficult for the nurse to plan ideal recovery plan for her. Recovery
approach of patients with mental illness are based on the dignity and self-respect; however, it
has been observed that Annabelle lost dignity and self-respect. It is evident that she become
care less about her and most of the time her clothes are dirty. Self-determination and self-
management are also important aspects in the recovery approach of patients like Annabelle.
However, she is not self-determined for recovery because she is not willing to co-operate in
her recovery. She hesitates to enter to the emergency department bed to receive care for her
mental health issue. It is apparent that she is not self-managing herself which is evident from
her dirty clothes. Involvement of patient in decision making is important aspect in the
recovery of mental illness patients. However, overall condition of Annabelle doesn’t allow to
participate in decision making. Different conditions like hallucination and erratic behaviour
would make it difficult to participate her in the decision making. Patients should know the
importance of medication consumption for recovery in mental illness. Hence, it is important
to educate Annabelle about importance about medication adherence. However, it is difficult
to educate her about medications because of her confused state of mind (McCauley et al.,
2015).
Relationship based care is important aspect in the recovery of mental health recovery.
However, in case of Annabelle establishing therapeutic relationship is difficult. There should
be effective communication among patient, family members and healthcare staff for
establishing therapeutic relationship. However, in case of Annabelle, there is no
communication among her, her mother and nurse. Trust, respect and support are also
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important aspects for therapeutic relationship; however, these aspects are not existing in case
of Annabelle. Recovery process in the mental illness patients are not mainly based on the
clinical symptomology; however, it based on the capabilities, strengths and positive attitude
of the patient. In case of Annabelle, these qualities are not existing. Hence, it is difficult to
implement effective recovery approach in case of Annabelle (Loos et al., 2017).
Recovery approach in the mental illness patients should be patient centred. In patient centred
approach, involvement of patient is important aspect. However, it is difficult to involve
Annabelle in her care because she is not communicating properly with nurses and family
members. Recovery process of mentally ill patients require long-term intervention. However,
in few cases it is difficult to provide required resources for the longer duration. Willingness
of health care professionals is also important issue in mental health recovery. It is evident that
nursing professionals are reluctant to provide intervention for the mentally ill patients. It
might be due to unacceptable and erratic behaviour of mentally ill patients towards nurses
(Jacob et al., 2017). In case of Annabelle also, her behaviour is not appropriate towards nurse.
Availability of competent nurses is also an important issue in implementing appropriate
recovery approach in the mentally ill patients. Nurses need to have specialised skills and
attitudes for implementing recovery approach in the mentally ill patient. Improper diagnosis
is also an important issue in implementing recovery approach in mentally ill patients. Patients
like Annabelle would not be able to verbalise about their symptoms. Hence, due to inaccurate
diagnosis; it would be difficult to implement appropriate recovery approach in patients like
Annabelle (Green et al., 2015).
Issues in mental state examination (MSE) :
Appearance, behaviour and attitude are the primary examinations for the patient with
mental illness. Nurses usually assess the patient for appearance, behaviour and attitude based
on the presenting condition. However, it would be difficult for the nurses to consider these
aspects in other than presenting condition. These aspects of the MSE provide information
about the patient’s hyenine and psychological status like agitation and restlessness. Annabelle
is with dirty jeans and T-shirt during presentation and most of the time; she used to be in the
same condition. However, if she would have presented in the clean dress; it would have been
difficult for nurse to make accurate assessment of Annabelle. Behaviour of the patient
provide information about the patient’s capability to maintain normal control. Normal control
of the patient, would be helpful in exhibiting more co-operation in the MSE (Martin, 2016). It
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