Trialling of the Partnership in Coping System

Exploring recovery-focused educational programmes for advancing mental health nursing: An integrative systematic literature review

Recovery-focused educational programmes have been implemented in mental health services in an attempt to transform care from a purely biomedical orientation to a more recovery-oriented approach. Mental health nurses have identified the need for enhancing their abilities and confidence in translating recovery knowledge into mental health nursing practice. However, recovery-focused educational programmes have not fully address nurses' learning needs. Therefore, this review synthesized the evidence of the effectiveness of recovery-focused educational programmes for mental health nurses. A systematic search of electronic databases and hand-searched references was conducted. It identified 35 programmes and 55 educational materials within 39 studies. Synthesizing the literature revealed three themes and nine subthemes. The first theme, a framework for understanding and supporting consumers' recovery, had four subthemes: consumers' involvement, multidisciplinary approach, profession-specific training, and performance indicators. The second theme, contents of educational materials, included the subthemes: knowledge development and recovery-focused care planning. The final theme, nurses' learning experiences, included the subthemes: understanding recovery, the positive effects of recovery-focused educational programmes, and implementation of recovery-oriented practices. Based on these findings, a mental health nursing recovery-focused educational programme framework is proposed. Further research should investigate the effectiveness of the framework, especially in relation to recovery-focused care planning and consumer and carer involvement in the development, delivery, participation, and evaluation of these educational programmes.

Coping focus counselling in mental health nursing

The aim of this paper was to describe a newly-developed system of mental health nurse counselling (coping focus counselling (CFC)) for people with serious and complex mental health needs. The system is based on the recovery alliance theory (RAT) of mental health nursing. The paper identifies shortcomings in current practices in psychotherapy and counselling in the exclusive use of techniques from a single approach, for example, cognitive behaviour therapy, client-centred therapy, attachment theory, or Gestalt theory. It also discusses the opposite dangers of the use of many techniques from different approaches, without a clear rationale for their selection. CFC was developed to avoid these practices. It accommodates the selective use of techniques from different approaches. Techniques selected are viewed as deriving their meanings from the theoretical framework into which they are assimilated, namely RAT, and no longer take the same meaning from the theory from which they originated. Central to this integrative process is the use of the concept of coping. Other distinguishing features of CFC are the use of everyday language in using the system and the reaffirmation of the nurse-client relationship within a working alliance as the basis in which the CFC operates.

Community mental health centres: a qualitative study of professionals' experiences

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of mental health work in community mental health centres with a multiprofessional workforce and aims of active user participation in the service. User participation implies collaborative relationships and different roles than that of expert professionals and dependent patients. How do professionals working in these services experience their work and professional role? This question was explored in order to highlight important aspects of community mental health work. A group of six experienced professionals from three community mental health centres in a Norwegian city were interviewed twice. The informants highlighted the complexity of community mental health work and the need to be flexible when working to support people with mental health problems in their everyday life situation. To see the service users as people and to facilitate social interaction was important. Their work was described as 'liberating' compared to working in institutions. However, although in their experience they found that professional knowledge and skills were important in their work situation, all had experienced that this was not always acknowledged by professionals in other services.

Health professionals' experiences of person-centered collaboration in mental health care

OBJECTIVE

The basic aim in this paper is to discuss health care professionals' experiences of person-centered collaboration and involvement in mental health rehabilitation and suggest ways of improving this perspective. Furthermore, the paper explains the supportive systems that are at work throughout the process of rehabilitation.

METHOD

The study design is a qualitative approach using three focus group interviews with a total of 17 informants with different professional backgrounds such as nurses, social workers, and social pedagogies. In addition, one nurse and one social worker participated in a semi-structured in-depth interview to judge validity.

RESULTS

Our results may demonstrate deficits concerning mental health care on several levels. This understanding suggests firstly, that a person-centered perspective and involvement still are uncommon. Secondly, multidisciplinary work seems uncommon and only sporadically follows recommendations. Thirdly, family support is seldom involved. Lastly, firm leadership and knowledge about laws and regulations seems not to be systematically integrated in daily care.

CONCLUSION

Taking these matters together, the improvement of a person-centered perspective implies cooperation between different services and levels in mental health care. In order to bring about improvement the health care workers must critically consider their own culture, coordination of competence must be increased, and leadership at an institutional and organizational level must be improved so that scarce rehabilitation resources are used to the optimal benefit of people with a mental illness.

The recovery alliance theory of mental health nursing

The recovery alliance theory (RAT) is a mid-range theory of mental health nursing based on humanistic philosophy. The conception of the RAT was the outcome of collaboration among service users, practising mental health nurses, educationalists and managers and was developed in the context of a number of political and social changes as well as changes in the mental health field. The theory is composed of six constructs: humanistic philosophy, recovery, partnership relation, strengths focus, empowerment and common humanity. The derivation of three concepts from these constructs, namely coping, self-responsibility/control and working alliance, forms the basis for the translation of the constructs into a system of mental health nursing practice [Partnership in Coping system (PinC)]. The constructs underpinning the RAT were clearly demonstrated in a preliminary trial of the PinC system.