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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clifton, Andrew, 1965- editor. | Hemingway, Steve, 1961- editor. |
Felton, Anne, editor. | Stacey, Gemma, editor.
Title: Fundamentals of mental health nursing : an essential guide for nursing
and healthcare students / edited by Andrew Clifton, Steve Hemingway, Anne
Felton, Gemma Stacey.
Other titles: Fundamentals of mental health nursing (Clifton)
Description: Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026169 (print) | LCCN 2017026825 (ebook) | ISBN
9781118880234 (pdf) | ISBN 9781118880227 (epub) | ISBN 9781118880210
(paperback)
Subjects: | MESH: Psychiatric Nursing–methods | Mental Disorders–nursing |
Nurse's Role
Classification: LCC RC440 (ebook) | LCC RC440 (print) | NLM WY 160 | DDC
616.89/0231–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026169
Cover image: © asiseeit/Gettyimages
Thank you for taking the time to read this book Fundamentals of Mental Health Nursing: An Essential Guide for Nursing and Healthcare Students. In recent years we would like to think that attitudes towards mental health have improved to the extent that governments, policymakers and healthcare professionals are now focused on working in partnership with service users, including their families and friends, to support people who are experiencing or have experienced a mental health problem.
There has often been a tension between mental health service users and practitioners in agreeing what is the most effective way of working together to facilitate wellness and recovery. Perhaps many of these tensions remain unresolved. However, in this book we hope to introduce you to many of the fundamental ideas, issues and concepts that shape mental health nursing practice today. Therefore, we hope you will find this book stimulating and informative but most of all we hope the book will challenge the way you think about mental health.
We were very pleased to be asked to edit this book for Wiley, and are grateful to all of the contributors, who have a range of experience in the field of mental health including those who are service users, carers, practitioners and researchers and those involved with learning and teaching activities in higher education institutions. We believe this breadth of expertise will enable readers to engage with each of the chapters to develop their knowledge and understanding of topics that can often appear complex, confusing and, dare we say it, contradictory. That is not a criticism, it is merely an acknowledgement that unlike some other health conditions, concepts of mental health and mental health treatments are sometime contested by a variety of individuals and stakeholders. For example, there is often a debate surrounding the causation of mental health problems and certainly there are many differing and competing perspectives on what are the most effective treatments for a particular disorder.
Moreover, many people with mental health problems may not access traditional mental health services where nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals practice. Therefore, it is important when reading this book that you are aware that mental well-being and recovery is not always a linear and homogenous process.
To make sense of these debates and healthy disagreements we have included 30 chapters divided into four sections to give you a basic and fundamental understanding of the ideas, issues and concepts that are relevant for students who have a desire to find out more or work with people experiencing a mental health problem. The sections are provided to bring meaning and shape to the book and each section contains individual chapters.
Each chapter in the book follows a similar pattern: they begin with learning outcomes, test your knowledge and then the introduction. In the main section of the chapter there are vignettes, learning activities and reflective exercises to test your understanding of the topic under discussion. Finally, all of the chapters conclude with test your understanding questions, a word search along with suggested further reading and websites. A companion website accompanies this book with multiple choice questions to further test your knowledge.
Although having a consistent structure, each of the chapters is ‘stand-alone’ and offered to the reader as separate entities. This means they are not crossed referenced to other chapters and you are not required to read the book in chronological order like some other textbooks. You may find similarities between some of the chapters in the book but the idea is that you can pick up the book on any page and you will find a nugget of information (or even inspiration) that can inform or influence your practice. For example, there are two chapters in this book on communication and interpersonal skills, each taking a different perspective on this topic – we hope you appreciate and value the differing approaches.
Part 1 Fundamentals of Mental Health Nursing provides an overview of the key policy, legal and conceptual issues underpinning mental health nursing in the UK which are important for understanding how mental health practice is organised and delivered in the UK. This section will introduce the reader to evidence based practice, a concept that allows for the integration of clinical expertise, patient values and the best research evidence into the decision making process for patient care. ‘Patient values’ as indicated here should be at the heart of all mental health practice, which is why there is a chapter on co-production, a term that has gained much currency in recent years and accentuates how positive relationships between service users and clinicians based on research evidence can lead to wellness and recovery.
It is important to remember when reading this book that each of the four regions of the UK – Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England – have responsibility for managing their own healthcare systems, including mental health, although mental health nursing is regulated by a UK-wide body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Therefore, unless otherwise stated, when talking about mental health we are discussing this in the wider UK context where, in relation to service users, mental health problems, disease, interventions and treatment the focus is on evidence based practice which tends not to have a geographical regional dimension.
Part 2 Mental Health Problems and Therapeutic Interventions comprises of 14 chapters and is the longest section in the book. The focus here shifts onto the mental health problems and therapeutic interventions you will most commonly come across in practice or clinical settings. It would be impossible to include all mental health problems and conditions in this section; there are many rare and unusual classified and non-classified disorders that you may never come across in your personal or professional careers.
For example, Munchausen syndrome or alien hand syndrome are particularly unusual conditions. Thus we have focused on the most common types of mental health problems you will probably come across such as anxiety, mood disorders, psychosis, substance misuse, eating disorders, personality disorder and organic disorders. To supplement this we have attempted to present an overview of the pharmacological, psychological, sociological and health promotional interventions that are utilised on a daily basis to support wellness and recovery.
The shortest part of the book is Part 3 Mental Health Nursing and the Lifespan where we introduce the reader to mental health across the lifetime in three discrete chapters. Chapter 22 ‘Mental health and children, adolescents and younger people’ provides an overview and understanding of the impact of psychological, biological and environmental factors in relation to the positive development of children and young people's mental health and emotional well-being and it considers the nature of child and adolescent mental health services for children in the legislative context.
Chapter 23 ‘Adults and mental health’ focuses on mental health after childhood, which in the UK is not always, but usually, classified as those people between the working age of 18 and 65, although it is important to remember that categorising by age is problematic as people do not always develop and degenerate in a linear manner. However, there is an emphasis in this chapter on the prevalence and complexity of those mental health problems that impact on working age adults with consideration given to the positive interventions that are used to support the mental health of adults.
The final chapter in this section ‘Mental health in later life’ enables the reader to recognise the factors and key life events that impact on the mental health and well-being of older people and to understand the range of mental problems that commonly but not exclusively affect older people. Underpinning this chapter is the notion that healthy ageing can provide positive outcomes and many opportunities for older people.
Part 4 Recovery in the Context of Mental Health Services is the final section of the book, where attention is drawn to how we as healthcare professionals, in collaboration with service users and carers, can support and facilitate recovery in many of the contemporary mental health settings and services. This section begins with how to apply recovery based principles and the intention is that these principles can be applied in almost any clinical or non-clinical setting.
The recovery framework can be used to develop approaches to care and treatment that support individuals with their mental health needs and appreciate an individual's unique circumstances irrespective of the setting, and we would argue this is fundamental to mental health nursing. This section concludes with a chapter on clinical supervision which we feel is vitally important for those people supporting an individual with a mental problem. At the heart of supervision, the focus is on the service user, for safe practice and quality of care. As well as providing a rich learning experience, by offering space to think and reflect, supervision is there for support – essential because of the emotional labours of caring, which can often cause stress and burnout.
All of that said, as most if not all of the authors in this book will testify, caring or supporting someone with a mental health problem is a huge privilege and when we work together and in collaboration with service users we can engender well-being and recovery. We hope you enjoy reading this book.
Dr Andrew Clifton
Dr Steve Hemingway
Dr Anne Felton
Dr Gemma Stacey
Don't forget to visit the companion website for this book:
www.wiley.com/go/fundamentalsofmentalhealth 
There you will find valuable material designed to enhance your learning, including: