Mental health nurses’ medicines management role: a qualitative content analysis

Aim: This study explores medicines management role undertaken by mental health nurses (MHN) in a wide variety of clinical specialisms and contexts. Method: Ten MHNs were interviewed and audiotaped. Qualitative content analysis of the transcribed interviews was undertaken. Results: These findings evidenced the wide ranging skills and knowledge the MHN utilizes when psychotropic medication is prescribed, and how they engage with service users and other practitioners. Four themes emerged that illustrated how the participants undertook such interventions: Medicines management in context; Managing time; Knowledge and skill used; Collaboration with other healthcare providers. Medicines management thus needs a greater emphasis in order for the for service users from the drugs they are prescribed achieves the optimum outcome

Wellbeing in the workplace

Promotional article for the occupational health magazin

Medication management in mental health: nurses’ perceptions of their work with service users and carers

Aim: This study aimed to ascertain registered mental health nurses’ perceptions of their role involving medication management interventions with clients and their carers. Medicine-related interventions include administration, assessment of therapeutic effect potential side-effects education, liaison with service users and influence in prescribing decisions. Design and methods: The study used a qualitative design. Ten registered nurses were interviewed. Findings: Three themes were identified all related to the nurse context of work, role and client and carer need: improved dialogue, information and education, and adherence issues. Practice implications: Nurses use their clinical expertise in medication management to help achieve optimum therapeutic outcomes

Contested cultural spaces: exploring illicit drug-using through Trainspotting

Contending that culture is one of the most potentially divisive signifiers of human activity, this paper probes some of the complexities that attend the (un)popular culture of illicit -using with which many young people in contemporary Britain are identified. Irvine Welsh's multi-media drugs narrative Trainspotting is drawn on to explore the politics embedded in Edinburgh's low- and high-cultural spaces and interrogate how lived culture is spatially constituted and expressed. Investigations focus on the micro - mappings of Scotland's drug-using "Other" which disorder official cartographies of the capital and illustrate the processes of marginalization. The final part of the discussion argues that the academy's recent cultural turn can inform school geography by contributing to a cultural pedagogy which recognizes that informal sites of learning can be used with young people to examine the multiple dimensions and dynamics of in/exclusion

Final Recommendations from the World Health Organisation Commission on the Social Determinants of Health: Nurses, part of the solution? A discussion paper.

Aim This paper suggests that nursing needs a new paradigm for research and practice that recognises the social determinants of health as potentially preventable causes of ill health. It is clear from the recent report from the World Health Organisation Commission on the Social Determinants of Health that nurses are critical to global change through their ability to champion a `social determinants of health` approach with partner agencies. Data Sources Relevant literature searches have been undertaken to inform this discussion paper using the following databases in late 2008/early 2009 including the previous twenty years as relevant (British Nursing Index, Medline and Cinahl). In addition relevant international policy documents have been referred to from 2000 on. Discussion On the publication of this report it is timely for nurses to take stock of how they might be most effective in reducing inequities in health as part of a global work force and resource for health. Many nurses will feel that they already work to promote social justice and poverty reduction yet their scope of action is often limited by their specific sector. Do nurses need a new paradigm for research and practice that focuses on the social determinants of health as potentially preventable causes of ill health? Conclusion Nurses need to strengthen their strategic skills to reaffirm inequities in health as a priority within often complex local circumstances and to enable them and those they care for to influence local and national policy, research and practice development. Key words – health, inequities, nursing practic

Can student mental health nurses be prepared for medicines management?

Aim This paper reports on an evaluation of the Medicines with Respect project, which implemented a stepped approach to education and training in medicines management (MM) for mental health nurses (MHNs). Method In the retrospective qualitative study, nine MHNs were interviewed to gain their perceptions of the MM training they received at university and to find out if it still had relevance. Results Content analysis of the interview data revealed that overall the participants valued the theoretical and practical learning strategies they experienced, although criticisms relating to all aspects of the education and training were reported. The participants also reported that the approach prepared them for clinical practice as registered nurses. Such an approach may also build the capacity of MHNs to develop as prescribers

Lifeworld led care wellbeing, and the 5th wave of public health

A recent paper has made the case for a `fifth wave` of public health action. The paper articulated the first four waves as focusing on civil engineering, the germ theory of disease, welfare reforms and lifestyle issues. This paper will focus on well-being and will expand on the authors articulation of a current need to “discover a new image of what it is to be human” in order to begin to address the challenges of promoting well-being. This paper will consider an alternative way of viewing human beings within a `caring` context and how this alternative view may aid this potential fifth wave of public health action. This alternative view has emerged from the work of Husserl who suggested that any human view of the world without subjectivity has excluded its basic foundation. The phenomenological understanding of `lifeworld` is articulated through five elements, temporality, spaciality, intersubjectivity, embodiment and mood which are all discussed here in more detail. A world of colours, sparkling stars, memories, happiness, joy, anger and sadness. It is this `lifeworld` which when health care or as argued in this paper public health become overly focused on decontextualised goals and measuring quality superficially can be neglected