Time Together as an arena for mental health nursing - staff experiences of introducing and participating in a nursing intervention in psychiatric inpatient care

Everyday ordinariness, neglected but important for mental health nurses' therapeutic relationships: An initial exploration for applying Daniel Kahneman's two systems of thinking

Mental health nurses undertake difficult and complex roles. Therapeutic relationships and engagement between mental health nurses and people experiencing severe mental ill-health provide the core purpose and rationale for such mental health care. These relationships are influenced by factors outside of frontline mental health nurses control. They are difficult to define or describe with clarity, have limited 'quantitative' evidence of effectiveness and are frequently not experienced as therapeutic. This paper presents some initial ideas regarding 'everyday ordinariness' using psychologist Daniel Kahneman's two systems of thinking as a focus for understanding and potentially improving mental health nurse practice, and therapeutic relationships and engagement.

Participation, Confirmation and Challenges: How Nursing Staff Experience the Daily Conversations Nursing Intervention in Psychiatric Inpatient Care

Mental health nursing focuses on patients' experiences, accessed through narratives developed in conversations with nursing staff. This study explored nursing staff's experiences of using the nursing intervention Daily Conversations in psychiatric inpatient care. We used a qualitative questionnaire and received 103 responses. Qualitative content analysis of the data resulted in three themes describing both advantages and obstacles with Daily Conversations: Promotes participation, Contributes to confirming relations and Challenges previous structures. To illuminate the significance of confirming acts and make nursing staff more comfortable, the intervention could benefit from being more flexible and allowing in its structure. For the intervention to succeed, nursing staff need training in conversation, thorough preparation, shared reflections on values in mental health nursing, and structures to maintain its implementation and use.