Posted: July 14th, 2022

Current Trends in Psychiatric Nursing

Current Trends in Psychiatric Nursing
Psychiatry is a continuously changing profession facing challenges from internal and external forces. Psychiatry nursing revolves around providing a conducive atmosphere that promotes healthy emotional living for mental health patients. In light of the current trends in psychiatric nursing, there have been some major changes and challenges in the past decades.
First, defining the role of a psychiatric nurse has always been debated. Throughout the history of psychiatry, the roles of psychiatric nursing personnel have changed and are continuing to change. The concept of psychiatric nursing care is shifting to incorporate a more engaging and involving care for the patients. Nurses are now focusing on creating a therapeutic relationship with their patients and becoming more involved with them to learn their behavior patterns and provide holistic care. Even hospitals are realizing the need to extend educational and training programs to the psychiatric nursing personnel to promote dynamic patient care. Psychiatric nurses must embrace the news roles and be ready to adjust according to the patients’ demands and needs. This will equip them with the skills they need to handle their patients confidently and avoid frustration.
Current statistics also show that the psychiatric field is understaffed with qualified psychiatric nursing personnel. Mental health is not the primary choice of specialization for most nurses following graduation. This has caused the supply of adequately trained nursing personnel to decrease significantly while the patient load is doubling each day. The unbalanced ratio means that the available qualified psychiatric nurses are overworked, reducing their ability to provide quality and personalized care for each patient. More emphasis should be put to encourage more nurses to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees programs in psychiatric nursing. This will help avail more psychiatric nurses who are qualified to handle patients in all units.
The emergence of clinical nursing research has also impacted psychiatric nursing. Initially, psychiatric nurses were involved with basic roles like nurturing and caring for people with mental health conditions. Today, becoming a qualified psychiatric nurse involves completing and getting certified in various programs and acquiring relevant training and experience. This shift demands that nurses either go back to school or get the relevant training to keep up with the increasingly changing demands of psychiatric nursing.
In the end, the quality of services delivered by psychiatric nurses depends on how well they are equipped to deliver them. There is an urgent need to establish general psychiatry at primary care. Well trained psychiatric nurses can provide services in various areas within the society, including community health centers, family and marital counseling, and providing health mentor programs for young children and teenagers in hospitals and schools.

Order | Check Discount

Tags: 150-200 words discussion with a scholarly reference, 200-300 words response to classmate discussion question, 250 word analysis essay, bachelor of nursing assignments, case study