Defensive practices in mental health nursing: Professionalism and poignant tensions

Mental health nursing is a skilled profession, well positioned to support patients towards recovery with evidence‐based therapeutic interventions. However, the profession continues to be challenged by tensions surrounding the delivery of restrictive interventions and concerns over tendencies towards...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of mental health nursing 2022-06, Vol.31 (3), p.743-751
Main Authors: Bifarin, Oladayo, Felton, Anne, Prince, Zoe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambiguity
Confusion
Defensive Medicine
Humans
Intervention
Leadership
Medical education
Mental health
mental health nursing
Nurses
Nursing
Organizational Culture
Professional practice
Professionalism
Psychiatric nurses
Psychiatric Nursing - education
Psychiatric-mental health nursing
restrictive practice
risk
role concept
Sympathy
Transformational leadership
Well being
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Summary:Mental health nursing is a skilled profession, well positioned to support patients towards recovery with evidence‐based therapeutic interventions. However, the profession continues to be challenged by tensions surrounding the delivery of restrictive interventions and concerns over tendencies towards defensive practices. This paper examines the ambiguity this creates within the mental health nursing role. Organizational cultures that overvalue metrics and administrative tasks create barriers for therapeutic engagement while contributing to role confusion and stress within nursing. We need to address such structural constraints on nurses as mental health nurses’ well‐being is crucial to service delivery and the realization of therapeutic goals. From the UK perspective, authors argue that there is a need to examine service structures that foster compassionate and transformational leadership to enable mental health nurses to exercise the agency to practice therapeutically. Education and quality nursing research have a pivotal role to play in enabling this shift.
ISSN:1445-8330
1447-0349
DOI:10.1111/inm.12936