Welcome to Mental Health Guide
Mental Health Act Article
. For a permanent link to this article, or to bookmark it for further reading, click here.
You may also listen to this article by using the following controls.
Mental Health Nursing and How to Become a Mental Health Nurse
from:Mental health nursing, also known as psychiatric nursing, is a branch of nursing that deals with the care of patients that are suffering from different mental illnesses or mental ailments. The responsibilities of nurses who practice mental health nursing require them to undergo additional training to cover the different aspects of psychiatric care. They have to undergo studies that pertain to psychiatric medication, psychological therapies and other mental health nursing knowledge requirements.
In the US, the practice of mental health nursing is actually divided into three areas. There are designations assigned to these mental health nursing practitioners, namely the licensed vocational nurse, also called the licensed practical nurse, the licensed psychiatric technician and the registered psychiatric nurse. Just like in regular nursing, mental health nursing also has certain rules regarding the limits that these nurses have in terms of duties.
The licensed practical nurses in mental health nursing basically have the same responsibilities that their regular nursing counterparts have, which is limited to the dispensing of medication and the assisting of the registered psychiatric nurses and the physicians who are attending to these patients. The same goes for the licensed psychiatric technician who also assists in the gathering of information on the psychiatric patients that they handle. A registered psychiatric nurse is often given more responsibilities than the practical nurse due to the longer period of time needed to become a nurse and the more extensive study they had to go through to get their Registered Nurse designation.
When a person wishes to enter the world of mental health nursing, they may do so by studying to become a licensed practical nurse. They can do this by training for a year or two in the aspects that cover nursing, like anatomy, patient care, pharmacology and physiology. Before they do undergo practical nursing training, they have to be at least a high school graduate to qualify. The national boards are then taken and must be passed before they can get the license to practice.
Mental health nursing is an area of nursing that requires utmost patience and understanding. The people who practice it or want to practice it should also possess superior interpersonal skills as well as the ability to create bonds with their patients to further help them with their mental health issues, also called therapeutic relationships. If a person does not possess any of these unique personality traits that should be part of a psychiatric nurse's package, it would be pretty difficult for them to adjust to the challenges that mental health nursing will bring.
Mental Health Act News
US financial regulation fixes urgently needed-GAO - FXStreet.com
WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - U.S. financial authorities have failed to limit systemic risks, and weaknesses in regulation need to be urgently fixed, according to a congressional report on Thursday. "Significant reforms to the U.S. regulatory system ...
Read more...Ministers failing to abolish mixed-sex wards, claim Tories - Guardian Unlimited
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, published figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing many trusts are unable to fully meet government guidelines on eliminating mixed-sex accommodation for patients. The Tories received ...
Read more...150-year-old mental institute hosts meet in Taj lookalike - New Kerala
By Brij Khandelwal, Agra, Jan 9 : A 150-year-old mental health institute that had the lieutenant governor of Agra as one of its first patients is playing host to over 3,500 psychiatrists at a conference inside a model of the Taj Mahal. "Instead of ...
Read more...Trusts failing to eliminate mixed-sex wards - The Independent
The Government is still failing NHS patients when it comes to mixed-sex accommodation, the Conservatives said today. Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed many trusts are unable to fully meet Government guidelines on eliminating ...
Read more...Time for a Mental Health New Deal - Huffingtonpost.com
Our host Kathleen's sensational homemade chocolate cake was Topic A at the holiday party of Wright Institute Los Angeles (WILA), a non-profit psychoanalytic institute which provides struggling Angelenos with low-cost, long term psychotherapy. But you ...
Read more...New rulings on mental health laws advanced - Belfast Telegraph
The introduction of mental health legislation in Northern Ireland is to be sped up, the Health Minister said last night. The Assembly will consider bills on mental capacity and mental health near the end of this year, following the Bamford Review of ...
Read more...