Critical Analysis of Mental Health Nursing in Acute Care Settings

This essay provides a reflective analysis of mental health nursing in acute care settings, focusing on the importance of patient-centered care, effective nurse-patient communication, and evidence-based practice. It addresses the challenges of mental health nursing, including professional burnout and compassion fatigue, highlighting the need for organizational strategies to support nurses and improve the quality of inpatient care. The essay also touches on the significance of cultural competence and recovery-focused models in enhancing mental health nursing practice within inpatient environments. The author uses their experience to discuss improving patient care and the need for more research into inpatient day-to-day practices. Desklib offers a wealth of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, for students seeking to deepen their understanding of mental health nursing and related topics.

0Running head: MENTAL NURSING IN ACUTE CARE
Mental Nursing in Acute Care
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

MENTAL NURSING IN ACUTE CARE
Part 1
Mental health nursing in acute care is a complex subject and there lacks patient based
therapeutic approach (Maslach & Jackson, 2013). During my course of practise as a mental
health nurse in acute care I have noticed that up gradation of therapy plan and information
associated with the quality of care for the mental health patient is vital. Effective nurse-patient
interaction can be cited of major source of such information. Accoring to Cleary et al. (2012), the
nurse patient communication will be guided by the interpersonal approaches and personal skills
in order to understand the patient’s perspective of pain management during the challenging
situations. This understanding helps in improving the therapy plan based on the concept of
person centred care which is extremely relevant in case of aged-population care who are
suffering from depression, anxiety or dementia (Kitson et al., 2013). Apart from patient
interaction, I believe evidence based practise along with cultural competence are two other
parameters to improve in-patient day-to-day care. According to Torreyet al., 2012, evidence
based information also helps to work effectively under the community mental health settings.
However, Kirmayer, 2012 has opined that attention is required on the clinical evidence and over
the importance of the cultural context of the illness in order to improvise the healing plan based
on the cultural safety and diversity.
Thus based on my one year experience in mental health nursing, the thing that I have
understood that effective communication with the patients along with evidence based practise are
the two most important pillars in providing comprehensive day-to-day care inpatient care.

MENTAL NURSING IN ACUTE CARE
Part 2
In response to this, it can be stated that mental health nurses suffer from extreme
professional burn-out that can be described as reduced sense of personal efficacy or
accomplishment and negative self-evaluation of job satisfaction. This can also be termed as
work-related mental health impairment (Ray et al., 2013). One of the important reason behind
the burn out and compassion fatigue in mental health nursing is increasing workload, lack of
workforce and lack of recognition (Morse et al., 2012). Employee burnout especially in case of
mental health nursing does not only cast a negative impact the doctors negatively but also
hampers the quality of care. Numerous organisational strategies like reducing the employee rate
turnover, providing awards and recognition and other evidence based practise can be employed
in order to fight against the burn out and compassion fatigue in mental health nurse in day to day
care (Ray et al., 2013).

MENTAL NURSING IN ACUTE CARE
References
Cleary, M., Hunt, G. E., Horsfall, J., & Deacon, M. (2012). Nurse-patient interaction in acute
adult inpatient mental health units: a review and synthesis of qualitative studies. Issues in
Mental Health Nursing, vol. 33(2), pp. 66-79.
https://doi.org/10.3109/01612840.2011.622428
Kirmayer, L. J. (2012). Cultural competence and evidence-based practice in mental health:
Epistemic communities and the politics of pluralism. Social science & medicine, vol.
75(2), pp. 249-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.018
Kitson, A., Marshall, A., Bassett, K., & Zeitz, K. (2013). What are the core elements of patient‐
centred care? A narrative review and synthesis of the literature from health policy,
medicine and nursing. Journal of advanced nursing, vol. 69(1), pp. 4-15.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2012.06064.x
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (2013). A social psychological analysis. Social psychology of
health and illness, 227. Retrived from: https://books.google.co.in/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=2JcCwVD5TpgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA227&dq=mental+health+nurse,
+lack+of+knowledge&ots=i7qY4ADO-
7&sig=HnEKlA8Kbj_DX16caO512bwkCt0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Morse, G., Salyers, M. P., Rollins, A. L., Monroe-DeVita, M., & Pfahler, C. (2012). Burnout in
mental health services: A review of the problem and its remediation. Administration and
Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, vol. 39(5), pp. 341-352.
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-011-0352-1

MENTAL NURSING IN ACUTE CARE
Ray, S. L., Wong, C., White, D., & Heaslip, K. (2013). Compassion satisfaction, compassion
fatigue, work life conditions, and burnout among frontline mental health care
professionals. Traumatology, vol. 19(4), pp. 255-267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-
011-0352-1
Torrey, W. C., Bond, G. R., McHugo, G. J., & Swain, K. (2012). Evidence-based practice
implementation in community mental health settings: The relative importance of key
domains of implementation activity. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and
Mental Health Services Research, vol. 39(5), pp. 353-364.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-011-0357-9