Response: Quality Improvement in Mental Health: Strategies and Ethics

This is a student's response to a discussion prompt regarding quality and safety issues in mental health. It highlights physical restraint as a quality improvement strategy and contrasts it with video surveillance, discussing the ethical considerations of both. The response also addresses the issue of compassion fatigue among mental health professionals due to job pressure and patient behavior, suggesting mindfulness and self-compassion interventions as potential solutions. The response references several scholarly articles to support its arguments, covering topics such as the ethics of physical restraint and video surveillance, and the impact of compassion fatigue on healthcare workers.

Running head: RESPONSE
Response
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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RESPONSE
Quality Improvement Strategy is highlighted in the form of physical restrain. The
quality improvement in the mental health can also be done with the help of the video
surveillance. According to Stolovy, Melamed and Afek (2015), video surveillance is tool that
can be used for managing the security of the mental health patients. It will help in monitoring
the patients 24X7 and can be helpful in order to reduce the violent and aggressive behavior.
This qualifies as a promising approach in comparison to the physical restrain. Petrini (2013)
stated that physical restrain hampers the autonomy of the patients. However, the use “round
the clock” video surveillance also hampers the ethical consideration of the privacy. Thus,
there is an ongoing debate over the use of the video surveillance of the mental patients
(Stolovy, Melamed & Afek, 2015).
The mental health professionals suffer from the compassion fatigue due to increase in
the job pressure, lack of staffs and working under adverse condition and facing aggression
and unlikely behavior of the service users. Ray et al. (2013) are of the opinion that frontline
mental health care professionals are the main victims of the high and the low level of
compassion fatigue. Raab (2014) stated that mindfulness interventions and increase in the
level of self-compassion interventions help in reducing the level of stress and compassion
fatigue among the mental healthcare workers. Mindfulness and self-compassion training
promotes an attitude of curiosity and non-judgment towards others experiences and thereby
helping to increase the effective care delivery.

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RESPONSE
References
Petrini, C. (2013). Ethical considerations for evaluating the issue of physical restraint in
psychiatry. Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanita, 49, 281-285.
Raab, K. (2014). Mindfulness, self-compassion, and empathy among health care
professionals: a review of the literature. Journal of health care chaplaincy, 20(3), 95-
108.
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, 19(4), 255-267.
Stolovy, T., Melamed, Y., & Afek, A. (2015). Video surveillance in mental health facilities:
is it ethical?. The Israel Medical Association journal: IMAJ, 17(5), 274-276.