Nursing Blog – Post Nursing Essentials.
The role of a psychiatric nurse in taking care of the patients with mental health disorders is the most challenging one and the most rewarding one among the many specialized nursing careers in the profession.
The one simple reason why psychiatric nursing assumes special significance is that the goal of the nurse is not treatment for the disease alone but the transformation of the patient as a whole.
It becomes imperative that there exists a very healthy understanding and therapeutic relationship between the patient and the psychiatric nurse. Because without the active co-operation of the patient, it become next to impossible for a psychiatric nurse to transform or change that patient to a normal person.
Persons affected by mental health disorders are likely to be of insane mind or instable mind. Their behavior, expression of feelings and such other things will be somewhat different and at times very cruel or even dangerous. Nevertheless, those people do have feelings and need care and attention. It becomes the responsibility of the psychiatric nurse to understand the nature of the illness, share the feelings and extend care and empathy to those patients.
The psychiatric nurse, through his or her actions and kind words, should create a good relationship, a therapeutic bond or relationship, with the patient such that the patient gets a feeling that he or she is getting recognized and his or her needs are being taken care of.
Building that relationship and instilling trust and confidence in the patient’s mind is very important for the psychiatric nurse. Because the therapeutic relationship that would then blossom between the nurse and the patient is the base or root for further effective treatment of the mental disorder.
Once a good rapport or understanding is created between the nurse and the patient, the therapeutic relationship can flourish well with a particular aim or target in mind – whole cure for the patient. The time-limited goal of ultimate and complete cure can become possible only with the co-ordination and co-operation of the nurse-patient relationship.
The nurse-patient relationship is essential for both the patient and the nurse. From the patient’s point of view, he or she develops a sort of trust on the nurse and will extend all possible assistance in the effective the part of the nurse, the therapeutic relationship will help the nurse devise care plans aimed at care assistance with the help of the patient, and not just for the patient.
A good therapeutic relationship between the nurse and the patient, usually has four distinctive stages – the orientation phase, the testing phase, the working phase and the termination phase.
In the orientation phase, the patient begins to treat the psychiatric nurse more as a caretaker or friend who shares the feelings of the patient, and begins to develop trust on the psychiatric nurse.
In the testing phase, the patient will try to strengthen the bond of trust by testing the limits of the psychiatric nurse and tests the intensity of interest and care showered by the psychiatric nurse.
In working phase, the actual treatment or rehabilitation phase of the mental health disorder begins where the patient and the psychiatric nurse jointly devise care plans and aim to follow the set plans. It is in this phase that the improvement in the health and mental condition of the patient begins to surface.
The termination phase marks the end of the nurse-patient therapeutic relationship where the patient gets complete cure from the disorder and walks out of the health care centre as a new person.