The Role of Mental Health Nurses in Violence Exposure Impacts

This report delves into the crucial role of mental health nurses in addressing the mental health impacts of exposure to violence, a significant issue within healthcare settings. The report begins by defining violence and aggression, exploring their causes in patients with various mental health conditions, and emphasizing that not all mentally ill individuals are violent. It highlights the impact of nurses, who provide care, support, and education to patients. The report discusses the increasing cases of violence and aggression against nurses, emphasizing the need for effective responses. It then outlines the management of aggression, including early intervention, de-escalation techniques, and the importance of interpersonal skills. The conclusion underscores the need for future approaches to manage contradictory views between patients and professionals, emphasizing the importance of communication, training, and support for nurses. The report references key literature and online resources to support its findings, providing a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Mental health
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Table of Contents
What role should mental health nurses have in addressing the mental health impacts of exposure
to violence? .....................................................................................................................................3
Management of Aggression and role of Nurse:.....................................................................4
Conclusion:.............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................5
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What role should mental health nurses have in addressing the mental health
impacts of exposure to violence?
There are different scenarios within workplace that experience incidents of violence and
aggression. There is increase within cases of aggressive incidents. Violence and aggression are
known as challenging behaviours within acute mental health setting. Violence is defined as act of
physical or verbal force that leads to injury or harm to any individual.
There are several reasons for violence and aggression within mental health setting. The
cause of violence among patients of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, narcissistic personalities,
antisocial cases, dementia, borderline personality disorder, brain tumor, injuries, etc. It is not
necessary that all mentally ill individuals are violent or aggressive (Price, and et.al, 2018)). A
person can be violent in some situations like when he is not living in good conditions. Other
factors like genetics and environmental factors also affect the way in which a person behaves.
When a person is violent and aggressive, he must avoid drugs, alcohol, stress, etc. Violence and
aggression are caused among individuals because of his relationship problems, trauma, stress,
etc. it is analysed that from past years mistreatment with people by other humans causing mental
illness that impact on the overall health of a person. In addition to this, it is determined that
mental health nurses impact more in dealing with the mental illness that arises due to violence.
The nurses are authorised for whole raft of duties within their daily routine (Price and et.al,
2018). They are not just only implementing and coordinating patient care, but also give advice as
well as support to the patients and educating humans about health treatments, causes and
conditions as well. Mental care is majorly a part of all rounds that involves culturally sensitive
provision of care which aid humans with their social, psychological and spiritual requirements.
According to the statistics, it is concluded that there is increase within violence and aggression
cases with nurses. They are assaulted and verbally abused by many patients. The risk for
physical and verbal assault is more in case of nurses (Yang, and et.al, 2018). There is an example
of violence and aggression at workplace in which an acute mental health clinical setting. There
was an individual of 19 years old who was admitted for drugs. It was revealed that he was
bullied in his school and one day out of anger, he hit some boys and destroyed the classroom.
The viewpoint of mental health professionals and patients is different and there is requirement of
effective responses to manage the process. Patients can view nurse’s responses as a controlling
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and consider poor communication a cause of aggression. Nurses generally relate aggression to
personality of patient.
Management of Aggression and role of Nurse:
As per the information given by Margaret and et. al., (2018), people dealing with mental
illness requires both informational and emotional support from the person who is care givers
which is generally comes from the nurses. The nurses focus on dealing with patients in a friendly
way so that they can decline the patient stress along with the physical symptoms. There are
stages of managing aggression and violence such as early intervention, conflict mediation, de-
escalation, redirection, rapport building, medication and combined or single initiatives. There is
need to have good interpersonal skills for managing with various aggressive patients (Dickens,
O'Shea, and Christensen, 2020). nurses can assist individuals to feel more “human” in treatment
centre and in hospital as well. Furthermore, giving psychosocial care also assist patient dealing
with mental illness to feel more balance in their life. Nurses develops a good relation with
patients which enables them to give treatments plans, advice & health care information that
patients can actually listened and followed.
Conclusion:
The perspective of both mental patients and professionals is different towards aggression
and violence. It is required to have future approaches in order to manage the contradictory views.
It is stated that mental health nurses plays an important role in dealing with patients of mental
illness by developing good relationship with them and by communicating with them which in
turn assist in gaining insight about how a person feeling mentally and emotionally as well. There
are various ways like training for communication, educating patients and de-escalating
techniques for avoiding aggression. Nurses can be supported through local health areas by
ongoing training and and education for improvement. It is seen that nurses have to analyse the
framework for involving themselves for training sessions in order to improve the efficiency of
treatment.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Price, O., Baker, J., Bee, P., & Lovell, K. (2018). The support-control continuum: an
investigation of staff perspectives on factors influencing the success or failure of de-
escalation techniques for the management of violence and aggression in mental health
settings. International journal of nursing studies, 77, 197-206.
Price, O., Baker, J., Bee, P., Grundy, A., Scott, A., Butler, D., ... & Lovell, K. (2018). Patient
perspectives on barriers and enablers to the use and effectiveness of de‐escalation
techniques for the management of violence and aggression in mental health
settings. Journal of advanced nursing, 74(3), 614-625.
Yang, B. X., Stone, T. E., Petrini, M. A., & Morris, D. L. (2018). Incidence, type, related factors,
and effect of workplace violence on mental health nurses: a cross-sectional
survey. Archives of psychiatric nursing, 32(1), 31-38.
Dickens, G. L., O'Shea, L. E., & Christensen, M. (2020). Structured assessments for imminent
aggression in mental health and correctional settings: Systematic review and meta-
analysis. International journal of nursing studies, 104, 103526.
Online
Margaret and et. al., (2018). [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6143650/>.
MHM, (2015), [Online]. Available through: < https://mental-health-matters.com/how-nurses-
impact-the-mental-and-physical-well-being-of-patients/>.
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