HLTEN510B: Implement and Monitor Nursing Care for Consumers with Mental Health Conditions Unit Outline

Nursing Assessment

Case Scenario/ Task

• How does an understanding of past treatments for people with a mental

illness help a person working in mental health today?

• How can myths about mental illness and psychiatric disability make it hard for

consumers to recover?

• What are the benefits of a person-centred approach as compared to

institutionalisation?

• Research a current government initiative designed to improve mental health.

Provide a brief description of the initiative including an overview of the

initiative, the target group, the planned outcomes and the agencies/personnel

responsible?

• Research and briefly describe briefly the following:

What is the Act called under which a person can be detained on mental

Health grounds within your state?

The detention orders criteria and length of time for a person to be

detained under the Act currently in your state

What are the criteria for continuing detention and/ or treatment orders

under the Act?

What is your responsibility (as an Enrolled Nurse) in regards to clients that

are detained under the Act?

• How does an understanding of past treatments for people with a mental illness help a person working in mental health today?

Past treatments help are of considerable clinical value to the continuous care of a patient, as it helps to document the progress of the patients care, and hence, contribute to the mental patient’s quality care. People with mental illness benefit from a range of treatments, and hence, understanding the past treatments is essential in making the correct or accurate diagnosis. Doctors make diagnosis for people with mental illness based on the patients certain pattern of symptoms, and how he/she best responds to a certain line of treatment (Barnett et al., 2012). Also, a mental patient’s past treatments helps to examine how the diagnosis changed, as the symptoms changed. Understanding the past treatments helps a doctor to determine the best form of treatment to the mental patient. Furthermore, examining the patients past treatments would help to determine the underlying causes of the mental problem, which helps in determining the best cause of treatment (White, 2014). Understanding the past treatments help doctors to understand the way mental patients think about, react to, and perceive certain things, including medications. This is essentially helpful to mental patients suffering from depression and anxiety disorders. A mental patient’s past treatments help doctors to determine how to best tailor their treatment regime to suit the patient’s needs and symptoms. Record keeping reduces the chance of a mental patient’s treatment being affected through duplication or omission of treatment, and failure to capture early signs of symptoms or change in the patient’s state or condition. Past treatments capture significant observations, diagnosis, and conclusions that are essential to treatment (Luo, Wu, Gopukumar, & Zhao, 2016).

• How can myths about mental illness and psychiatric disability make it hard for consumers to recover?

Myths concerning psychiatric and mental illness may make extremely hard for a consumer to recover from sickness. There are numerous myths about psychiatric disabilities and illness, which feed negative discrimination and stereotyping. As a result, people suffering from the psychiatric disabilities or mental illness may not be willing to seek treatment or diagnosis because they do not want to become discriminated or stereotyped against (Lucksted et al., 2011). Discrimination against people with psychiatric and mental disability becomes internalised, which results to the emergence of self-stigma. Thus, people with psychiatric and mental disability can start to believe the negative postulation and thoughts expressed by others, in turn, it makes them think that they are undeserving of care, unable to recover, dangerous, and they are responsible for their sickness. This makes them develop low self-esteem, shame, and unable to accomplish their goals and objectives (Yanos et al., 2012). It results in the emergence of “why try” influence, where people believe that they are not able to live normally, or recover fully, and hence, why try? Thus, it is essential to remove all forms of myths and any form of negative labelling, as it has significant detrimental effects on the consumers recovery process.

• What are the benefits of a person-centred approach as compared to institutionalisation?

The person-centred nursing offers significant benefits than institutionalization. In person-centred care, the relationship between caregivers and patients is dominant, as opposed to institutionalization. The person-centred approach of care helps to fostering a nurturing approach to healthcare, and hence, facilitates a relationship between caregivers and patients that is based on honesty, trust, recognition, and respect (Baird et al., 2014). Institutionalization is recognised as a service organization where caregivers have a responsibility of care to mentally ill patients. Institutionalization does not emphasize on the association between caregiver and patients, it permits the nurses and caregivers to rapidly recognise the actions that should be taken to patients that have similar conditions. Institutionalization offers safekeeping of patients by offering protection and shelter, especially, those suffering from chronic ailments. For instance, institutionalization offers severe mentally ill patients, particularly those whose symptoms cannot be controlled in any outpatient program or facility with inpatient treatment program, which effectively control their symptoms (Chen et al., 2011).

• Research a current government initiative designed to improve mental health

The Roadmap For National Mental Health Reform2012 – 2022, is a strategy for attaining an Australian society, which values mental wellbeing and health. The Roadmap utilises a framework of social determinant of health to acknowledge a wide range of factors that influences a person’s mental health. The target group for the Mental Health reform is governments, health institutions, and the wider Australian society (Council of Australian Governments, 2011). The Roadmap recognises that the shared intent, goals, and objectives of Australian society reflects on the intentions of the State and territory governments, Commonwealth to develop targeted approaches that seek to enhance support and mental health services across all the relevant portfolio’s, which includes education, child protection, mental health, early childhood education, health, youth employment, workplace relations, homelessness, and the justice system because they all function together to foster a proper mental health approach. The Roadmap necessitates the collaboration of the state and territory governments and commonwealth to ensure and deliver a well-coordinated and seamless person-centred mental health care system in Australia (Council of Australian Governments, 2011). The person-centred mental health care system is based on emerging best practices and evidence based approaches, which seek to minimize the effect of mental illness by outlining the agreed goals and priorities for investments in all mental health areas. The Roadmap ensures that a shared vision is achieved through future actions across all state and territorial governments that are guided by the national strategies and priorities in the Roadmap.

• Research and briefly describe briefly the following

What is the Act called under which a person can be detained on mental Health grounds within your state?

The Mental Health Act (1990) offers the grounds under which an individual can be detained on mental health grounds (Callaghan and Ryan, 2012).

The detention orders criteria and length of time for a person to be detained under the Act currently in your state?

The Mental Health Act (1990) was designed to safeguard patient’s rights. However, it does recognise that there are some conditions or states where the patient is not in where the mentally ill patient is not (1) in a correct frame or state of mind to make a decision, and (2) this play place them in risky circumstances or conditions (Callaghan and Ryan, 2012). Thus, it suggests forceful detention of patients if:

• The patient demonstrates or has signs and symptoms suggestive of mental illness necessitating treatment.
• The individual poses a risk of serious or significant harm to others or themselves (Callaghan and Ryan, 2012).

What are the criteria for continuing detention and/ or treatment orders under the Act?

One an individual is involuntarily detained under the auspices of the Mental Health Act (1990); he or she can be detained for up to three months. However, if extra time is needed then an extension of provisional patient order is sought from the Mental Health Review Tribunal (Mcsherry and Wilson, 2011).

What is your responsibility (as an Enrolled Nurse) in regards to clients that are detained under the Act?

The enrolled nurse, subject to the directions and order of the director, must carry out the detention and treatment order, and maintain order and security to prevent nuisance and harm to others. An enrolled clinician has the overall responsibility over a person’s care. The enrolled nurse or clinician must follow the guiding principle offered by the Code of Practice lists that they must consider when treating the mentally ill patient. A significant guiding principle for an individual detained and treated against their will must be involved in the planning process and their wishes is considered in the treatment process by the enrolled nurses (Callaghan and Ryan, 2012).

Pick a mental health illness that interests you from the following list: Drug Abuse

Drug abuse is one of the health issues that plague the society today. The physical effects of drug abuse or addition are usually witnessed on the body, and in all the abusers bodily system. Primarily, the physical effects of drug abuse occur in the brain, as it influences how the brain functions and perceives pleasure. Also, the physical effects of drug abusers are witnessed on their babies, as they are born with cognitive deformities (Fahrudin, Yusuf and Malek, 2016). Other physical effects of drugs abuse include: heart irregularities, HIV contraction, seizures, kidney and liver damage, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, lung cancer, improper sleeping patterns, and brain damage. One of the major psychological effects of drug abuse is the addition or craving for the drug. Thus, it causes the drug user to obsess and long for the drug to the extent of excluding everything else. The other psychological effects of drug use include hallucinations, reduction in pleasures for everyday life, depression, wild mood swings, violence, paranoia, anxiety, confusion, development of mental illness, and the desire to participate in risky behaviours. The psychological tolerance of the effects of drugs creates a desire to indulge in ever-increasing quantities of drugs. Drug abuse has significant social effects in the community. Drug abuse hampers the family structure in the society, as it causes children to be brought up in dysfunctional home, where children lack proper care and adequate love to ensure proper growth. Children raise with addicted parents tend to experience both physical and emotional abuse (Fahrudin, Yusuf and Malek, 2016). Furthermore, drug abuse leads to breakage of marriages and relationships, as it makes it difficult for partners to cope with each other. Drug abuse effects education as it negatively affects performance, and cause students to drop out of school. The abuse of drug use causes significant health and security problem in the society. Drug users tend to result into crimes to sustain their addiction. Thus, drug abuse has significant psychological, physical, and social problems in the society.

Nursing a drug abuser necessitates a well thought out care plan, which would result in recovery of the patient. The care plan must involve measures that ensure that the patient is taken through a well structured recovery process. The nurse in collaboration with the patient and family develop treatment and recovery outcomes, which guide the recovery process. The priorities for the nurse is to ensure that he or she enhances the patients coping mechanisms and skills, offers a solid support to halt substance abuse, ease the patient’s ability to learn to minimise anxiety, promote the involvement of family members in the treatment and rehabilitation program, facilitate the growth and development of the family and patient, and offer the relevant information on the prognosis, condition, and treatment plans. However, the nurse must first establish the drug of drugs being used through drug screening. Also, the nurse needs t identify any other diseases, which affect drug abusers, such as, HIV, hepatitis, and TB. The recovery process must follow clear nursing intervention mechanism, which enhances the recovery (Chen et al., 2011).