Assessment 2: Mental Health Nursing Collaboration Practice Report

This report explores collaborative mental health nursing practices, emphasizing the importance of understanding healthcare consumers' experiences with mental disorders. It highlights the significance of the Tidal Model in assessing patient distress and aligning care priorities with patient needs. The report also includes a self-reflection on the author's nursing practice, identifying challenges related to workload, activeness, flexibility and communication. To address these issues, the author proposes education and training to enhance skills in communication, collaboration, and patient-centered care. The report concludes by emphasizing the value of collaboration in improving patient outcomes and outlines strategies for improvement.

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 1
COLLABORATIVE MENTAL HEALTH NURSING PRACTICE WITH
HEALTHCARE CONSUMERS WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED A MENTAL
DISORDER
By (Name)
Course
Tutor
University
Date

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 2
Introduction
Patient-nurse collaboration is a critical component of patient-centred care. Collaboration is
one demonstration of the shift in healthcare delivery from the traditional authoritative
strategies for treatment to a new system that is more mutually respectful and patient-centred.
A collaborative approach in clinical relationship demonstrates the positive values, beliefs and
attitudes between the consumers and nurses towards each other and their interactions
(McCloughen, Gillies & O'Brien 2011). Collaboration is essential when dealing with
consumers who have previously experiences a mental disorder. Diagnosis of mental illness
results in stigma. Therefore, mental health patients have a small social support system that
includes close friends and family. Lack of collaborative healthcare may cause the patients to
be over dependent on the small network for support and treatment; hence limiting their
support to professional health (Henderson et al. 2019). Collaboration helps to improve
primary mental care through enhancing access to services, minimizing gaps in service
delivery, utilizing available resources which reduce the cost of healthcare, reducing the
duplication of services and promoting equity in the delivery of mental health services.
Consequently, collaboration improves the health, well-being quality of life of the consumers
(Henderson et al. 2019). There is need to understand the nature and components of
collaborative mental health care so as to improve patient outcomes.
Key terms
Collaboration. It is a process that involves working together to achieve patient-centred
outcomes through engaging in a therapeutic framework characterised by respectful, open and
honest communication (McCloughen, Gillies & O'Brien 2011).
Collaborative nurse-consumer relationship. A relationship through which the nurse uses
him or herself to facilitate development and growth while engaging with the consumers

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 3
through various psychosocial interventions with the focus of supporting the consumer to
achieve personal growth (Hercelinskyj & Alexander 2019).
Stigma. It is a complex social process of discrimination, devaluation and labelling that is
characterised by a combination of behavioural, cognitive and emotional behaviour (Knaak,
Mantler & Szeto 2017).
Experts by experience/ people living with the effects of a mental disorder. Individuals
with lived experiences of recovering from mental health problems (Happell et al. 2019)
Recovery. It is a personal, social and spiritual process. As a personal process, it involves
regaining self-esteem and self-control while moving and coping beyond being a patient. As a
social process, it focuses of the interaction between a person and the environment. As a
spiritual process, it involves the individual seeking a meaning in life (Hummelvoll, Karlsson
& Borg 2015).
Tidal Model. A philosophical approach towards mental health discovery that focuses on
enabling patients to recover their voice anf recklain their individual story of mental distress
(Barker & Buchanan-Barker 2012).
Purpose of the assignment
Collaboration is critical in the realization of effective and successful mental health care and
recovery. McCloughen, Gillies and O'Brien (2011) noted that there is inadequate authentic
collaboration between mental health professionals and their consumers in several practice
areas. The barriers to effective collaboration include false assumptions, inaccurate
perceptions and misleading behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to critically assess why it
is important for nurses to clearly understand the experiences of healthcare customers related
to living with the effects of a mental disorder. Also, the assignment is a self-reflection of my

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 4
attitude, behaviours and skills to understand my effectiveness in collaborative working with
the consumers.
Discussion
Discussion 1: Understanding of the health care consumer's experiences of living with
the effects of a mental disorder
It is important for mental health nurses to understand the experiences of the healthcare
consumers for various reasons. This concept is best described in the Tidal Model that was
developed by Barker and Buchanan-Barker in 2005. The model offers a compassion-based
method to health recovery. The Tidal Model was developed by people who have previously
used mental healthcare services and mental health nurses. The focus of the tidal model is the
beginning of a recovery journey for persons with mental illnesses when they are at their
lowest points in life (Ramage, Ellis & Marks-Maran 2018). The model emphasizes on the
patient perspectives, opinions and well-being as the focal point of effective mental health
recovery.
One reason is to enable nurses to assess the level of distress of their healthcare consumer. The
nurses are able to clearly understand how disturbed the person is, any needs for security and
the fitness of the person to share his or her story (Tofthagen, Talseth & Fagerström 2014).
Mental health consumers are an exposed and vulnerable group of patients. Come of their
experiences include conviction with a crime, referral for treatment and treatment in
institutions with high security levels. Therefore, the patients have unique interests, ability and
needs regardless of their difficult experiences in life (Hörberg, 2018). The nurse can only
develop plans to contain their distress by understanding their life experiences
Understanding the healthcare consumer’s experiences helps the mental health nurses to
understand the goals, issues and priorities of their patients. This knowledge helps the nurses

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 5
to develop meaningful care priorities that align with the patient’s needs (Ramage, Ellis &
Marks-Maran 2018). The patient’s perspective is the basis for caring for the patient and must
be understood considered by the care giver or nurse (Hörberg 2018). Understanding the
experiences determines the nature, intensity and quality of interactions that the nurses will
engage in with their patients by understanding core principles such as collaborative
relationships and human dignity (Gwinner & Ward 2014). Therefore, mental health nurses
are able to approach nurse-patient collaborations from an informed perspective.
Listening to the experiences of their patients enlightens nurses on the disparities between the
nurses’ perspectives, and the consumers’ experiences so as to develop an accurate recovery
history and plan. Consequently, the patients are able to develop a first-person account of their
experiences rather than the limiting and critical messages from their families, communities
and healthcare providers. Therefore, the patients are able to overcome the challenges that
arise from engagement in a healthcare system that perceives them as disabled so as to
develop their own vision and voice for recovery (Ostrow & Adams 2012). Understanding the
patients helps to harmonize the goals of both the nurse and patients regarding the
collaborations.
Understanding the patient enables nurses to focus of patient-centred care. The nurses are able
to perceive the patients as human beings regardless of the suffering. Therefore, getting a
patient’s life world approach in the best way possible helps the nurse to assess the patient’s
comprehension of his or her situation. This changes the nurses’ perception after
understanding how the patient understands him/herself, and the needs of the patient in order
to support mental health recovery (Hörberg 2018). Therefore, understanding the patient
promotes healthy patient-nurse.
Understanding the patients also forms a basis for effective communication in the course of
collaborative treatment. When nurses listen to their patients, the patients develop trust that

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 6
enables them to express their feelings and also to participate in their own process of care and
recovery. The patients are able to effectively communicate while sharing their experiences
and collaborating with the nurses when they have mutual trust (Hörberg 2018). Effective
communication can b achieved when mental health nurses understand their patients.
Discussion 2: One aspect of my own nursing practice that requires some development
In my nursing practice, I have experienced challenges in fostering activeness, flexibility and
effective communication in handling my patients. The challenge often arises from increased
workloads. In my healthcare setting, there are a few mental health nurses to serve the
increasing population of patients seeking mental health services. I often have a busy schedule
due to the large nurse-patient ratio. Increased workload leads to time constraints, fatigue and
tight schedules. Hamim (2015) cited that excessive workload is a major cause of stress, lack
of job satisfaction, and depression that prevents nurses from applying caring behaviour in the
development of their nursing services. Excess workload increases the incidence of poor
communication between patients and nurses, failure of collaboration between healthcare
providers and poor adherence to nurse caring behaviours (Hamim 2015). I have had problems
managing my workload to meet the patents’ expectations.
In nursing practice, it is the role of a nurse to understand the unique problems and needs to
the patients and different responses for the patient are suffering. Caring is demonstrated
through nurse-patient relationships, interpersonal relationships, giving adequate attention to
the patient, and intervening in the maintenance of the patient’s health (Hamim 2015). I am
often unable to achieve these goals of nursing practice; hence becoming inactive, and
inflexible in the development of meaningful collaborations with my patients. Another
possibility of these shortcomings is missed care, particularly in aspects such as talking to
patients and their families, and comforting patients, which results in poor patient outcomes.

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 7
Certainly, I need to embrace flexibility in dealing with mental health consumers regardless of
the tight schedules and increased workloads.
There are several strategies that I can develop to enhance flexibility and activeness in my
nursing practice. McCloughen, Gillies and O'Brien (2011) explained that attributes possessed
by nurses and consumers are critical determinants of the success of collaborative initiatives.
The antecedents to a fruitful collaboration are that both nurses and consumers must possess
effective interpersonal communication skills, and the ability to have meaningful engagements
with each other. The factors that facilitate a meaningful collaboration include mutual valuing
of various lived and professional experiences, expertise and knowledge, ensuring flexibility,
responsiveness and activeness in the relationship, availability of adequate time and resources
and a supportive organization.
I will enhance my flexibility and activeness using through education and training. First, skills
training and education would be essential for me to understand various aspects of nurse-
patient collaboration in mental health recovery. Morley and Cashell (2017) explained that
education and training enables nurses to understand their role boundaries, expectation sand to
balance their professional identity and collaborative identity. Education and training
minimizes the professional’s prioritization of individual professional roles and needs and
instead focuses on the goal of the team and collaboration. Setting appropriate priorities
promotes a better patient-centred care model. Morley and Cashell (2017) added that training
and education facilitates the engagement of effective communication that includes respect
and dignity, negotiation, conflict resolution, and use of appropriate language and
terminology. Therefore, acquiring adequate knowledge and skills will enable me to interact
meaningfully with my mental health consumers to develop successful collaboration
initiatives.
Conclusion

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 8
Collaboration is an important concept in enhancing patient outcomes among mental health
consumers. This assignment aimed to provide insight on various aspects of nurse-patient
collaboration through assessing the necessity of nurses understanding the experiences of their
patients’ experiences and a self-reflection of my own nursing practice. The findings of the
critical analysis indicated that the tidal model is important for nurses to understand the
experiences of the healthcare consumers. The model prioritises patients’ perspectives as the
pivot to the development of the collaboration goals and patient care objectives. The
understanding helps nurses to assess the level of distress of their patients, based on their
experiences, note the patients’ goals, issues and priorities, harmonize their perspectives with
the consumers’ experiences and goals, foster effective communication, and establish patient-
centred care.
The aspect in my nursing practice that requires development is flexibility, activeness and
effective communication in addressing the needs of the mental health consumers. The
problem is triggered by increased workload in my workplace. Education and training is an
effective strategy that will enable me to improve of this aspect. I will understand how to
balance my professional roles and patient needs. I will also learn effective communication
skills including language and terminology that needs to be applied in mental health
collaborations with patients.
.

Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Practice 9
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