Psychiatric Nursing Research Topics

Psychiatric nursing explores mental health and its components. According to Sheila Videbeck in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, mental health nursing deals with assessing patient needs, developing and implementing a plan of care, and evaluating it. It is a dynamic and ever-changing state. Thus, research is done to promote psychiatric nursing, improve mental health care for culturally diverse individuals and members of the community and shape the health care policy for the delivery of mental health services.

Innovative Therapeutic Approaches

• The American Psychiatric Nurses Association stresses the importance of research that provides effective evidence-based nursing practices. One practice that is vital to the nursing profession is therapeutic communication, the interaction between the nurse and client wherein the nurse attends to the exact needs of the client to promote an effective exchange of information. Barbra Kozier et al. in "Fundamentals of Nursing" calls this process a helping relationship and a goal oriented activity. In discovering new and beneficial ways to relate to patients, nurses can offer supportive interventions that will hasten improvement of the patient.

Significant Information Trends

• Enhancing your scientific knowledge base can contribute to the advancement of client care. Reviewing current studies and tackling present issues paves the way to a more in depth analysis of these trends. It may bring about a new discovery that will influence how traditional nursing interventions are done. Moreover, it can exemplify how a new trend is becoming useful to patient care.

Drug Therapies

• The biological paradigm states that treatment should also be given through a biological intervention. Hence, pharmacotherapy is often used in psychiatric nursing to alleviate and reduce symptoms a patient may experience. Conventional medicines are regularly used and the development of newer drugs may replace them. It is the responsibility of the nurse to report any signs or indications of effectiveness, adverse reactions and added uses of these substances. Research on the efficacy or unfavorable results of these treatments may catalyze change in patient outcomes.

Community Nursing

• Nurses and patients are not just confined to hospital institutions. They can also be found in community-settings that cater to the needs of clients outside the walls of an institution. Videbeck explains that the community-based system has programs that focus on rehabilitation, education, socialization, management of symptoms and medication. It is specifically advantageous to clients who can remain in their communities, maintain family contact and have personal freedom. Therefore, community nursing is becoming a trend that should be properly studied.