The attitudes and feelings of mental health nurses towards adolescents and young adults with nonsuicidal self-injuring behaviors

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices on child and adolescent mental health among healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review

INTRODUCTION

Child and adolescent mental health is a global priority. In sub-Saharan Africa, despite the high burden, there is a gap in health services for children and adolescents with mental health disorders. To bridge this gap, healthcare workers require a good understanding of child and adolescent mental health, the right attitude, and practices geared to improving child and adolescent mental health. This scoping review examined the knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to child and adolescent mental health among sub-Saharan African healthcare workers.

METHODS

The search was restricted between January 2010, the year when the Mental Health Gap Action Programme guidelines were launched, and April 2024. The review followed the methodological framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley for conducting scoping reviews. The databases searched included CINHAL, PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and grey literature databases. Additional articles were identified through cited references of the studies included. A data extraction template was used to retrieve relevant text. A narrative synthesis approach was adopted to explore the relationships within and between the included studies.

RESULTS

The literature search yielded 4658 studies. Among these, 817 were identified as duplicates, and 3740 were excluded after screening. Only twenty-one articles met the criteria for inclusion in the review. The findings showed that healthcare workers have insufficient knowledge of child and adolescent mental health, hold negative attitudes toward children and adolescents with mental health problems, and exhibit poor practices related to child and adolescent mental health.

CONCLUSION

It is crucial to build capacity and improve healthcare workers' practices, knowledge, and attitudes toward child and adolescent mental health in sub-Saharan Africa. This could lead to better access to mental health services for children and adolescents in the region.

Compassion Satisfaction and Burnout Are Related to Psychiatric Nurses' Antipathy Towards Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (NSSI)

OBJECTIVE

Many psychiatric patients engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Despite this, studies show that psychiatric nurses display a stigma toward patients who engage in self-harm, often due to the fact that nurses report a lack of understanding about the behavior. In addition, nurses can struggle with professional quality of life (ProQOL). The purpose of this study was to provide an educational intervention on NSSI and measure its effects on antipathy as well as to determine if ProQOL has an impact on overall antipathy.

METHODS

A sample of psychiatric nurses was recruited and randomly assigned to either the educational intervention or control group. Both groups took the Self-Harm Antipathy Scale (SHAS) and ProQOL-V; the intervention group was asked to repeat the SHAS immediately following an educational video, and the control was asked to repeat the SHAS at least 2 weeks later. Qualitative data were also collected.

RESULTS

The ProQOL-V CS subscale and pretest SHAS total scores (n = 23, r = -0.432, p = .039) and SHAS Needs Function (NF) (n = 23, r = -0.454, p = .029) showed a significant moderate negative correlation. There was also a significant moderate positive correlation between the ProQOL-V Burnout subscale and SHAS NF pretest scores (n = 23, r = 0.483, r = 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS

A relationship between high compassion satisfaction and low antipathy, as well as between high burnout and high antipathy, particularly in the area of understanding the reasons patients self-harm (NF) was found. Educating nurses on the reasons for NSSI may reduce their antipathy. It may also be beneficial to support nurses to prevent burnout.

Mental health nurses' perception of self-harm among people receiving psychiatric care in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Mental health nurses (MHNs) play an important role in dealing with those receiving psychiatric care for self-harming behaviour. How nurses perceive this group of people is pivotal to timely prevention of such harmful behaviour. This project aimed to assess MHNs perception of self-harming behaviour among those receiving psychiatric care in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Descriptive research was conducted with 400 nurses at governmental hospitals affiliated to the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) in the KSA. Data were collected using an online survey and questionnaire: the survey was divided into two sections: one concerned with demographic characteristics of the participants, the second section focusing on their workplace characteristics. The Self-Harm Antipathy Scale-Swedish Revision (SHAS-SR) was used to assess perceptions of self-harm among MHNs. This scale included 19 items categorized into five subscales. Finding showed that more than half of nurses had a low perception of those who self-harmed. Additionally, there was a highly significant association between the nurses' total self-harm perception scores and their workplace characteristics. Promoting person-centred care to those who self-harm through the creation of a collaborative nurse-patient relationship, may improve insight and understanding of the behaviour. Continuous professional development for staff who provide care for those who self-harm would promote better understanding of the behaviour. In addition, workshops, presentations and modelling good practice, are all key for transferring information into real-world applications for MHNs to provide better care for those who self-harm.

Challenges for psychiatric nurses working with non-suicidal self-injury adolescents: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Psychiatric nurses play a crucial role in treating and supporting adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in China. However, few studies have explored their experiences and challenges.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the challenges experienced by psychiatric nurses when working with adolescents having NSSI behaviors.

METHODS

This was a descriptive qualitative study using phenomenological approach. 18 psychiatric nurses from psychiatric wards were recruited from a tertiary hospital from Changsha, Hunan province, China. In-depth interview was performed for each participant collecting information about their feelings and experiences taking care of NSSI adolescents. ATLAS.ti 8 was used to enter data and perform thematic analysis following the six-phased process described by Braun and Clarke.

RESULTS

Two main themes and five sub-themes were summarized in this study. Nurses experienced both (1) Internal challenges (Lacking knowledge and skills to deal with NSSI adolescents and Feeling hard and stressful working with NSSI adolescents) and (2) External barriers (Unrealistic high expectations from family and schools, Uncooperative parents and Little help from communities and schools).

CONCLUSIONS

Psychiatric nurses had to face with their own negative feelings, insufficient knowledge and skills, alongside with pressures and little help from family, schools and communities when working with NSSI adolescents. Targeted training programs of treating NSSI adolescents and their supporting systems be performed in nurses, furthermore, family, schools and societies should also be raised.

Survey of knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention among nursing staff

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore the knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention among nurses with different demographic characteristics.

METHODS

A cross-sectional descriptive design was adopted, and the study was conducted between August and September 2020. The content of the questionnaire included basic demographics, knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention. Correlation analysis was performed to determine nurses' knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention.

RESULTS

The sample comprised 778 nursing staff from a medical center in southern Taiwan. The results showed that age, years of nursing experience, department type, education on suicide prevention, and care experience of nursing staff were associated with their knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention in general hospital patients. Younger and less experienced nurses demonstrated superior knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention. Nurses who received suicide-related education and training exhibited better self-efficacy and attitudes than those who did not. Nurses with care experience had better knowledge of suicide prevention than those without experience. Knowledge and self-efficacy in suicide prevention were both significantly and positively correlated with attitudes.

CONCLUSION

Younger, less experienced, psychiatric nurses demonstrated superior knowledge, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward suicide prevention. Therefore, education on suicide prevention should be strengthened for older, experienced, and non-psychiatric nurses.

Revisiting Social Stigma in Non-suicidal Self-injury: A Narrative Review

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is highly prevalent in our community. Yet, there is a significant discrepancy between the number of individuals engaging in NSSI and those who seek treatment for NSSI. This discrepancy can be due to the high social stigma associated with the behavior. The impact of NSSI stigma is significant and can impair the quality of life in the individuals engaging in NSSI, delay help-seeking, reduce access to mental health care and further fuel misinformation. Even though the symptomatology, risks, and demographics of NSSI have received attention in terms of research, there is limited literature on NSSI stigma and its consequences. With that background set, this review provides a bird's-eye view of the different levels of stigma in NSSI (public, self, and health care), associated discrimination, the various aspects of such stigmatization (NSSI-related language, physical scarring, misinformation, the media), and, finally, the collaborative clinical-outreach interventions for mitigating NSSI-associated social stigma. If NSSI is indeed recognized as a clinical disorder, future research would need to focus on these constructs of stigma and treat them with the same importance as the one given to clinical studies of intervention and symptomatology in NSSI.