QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS ON THE BELOW

DISCUSSIONS

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Ask a probing question, substantiated with additional background information, evidence, or research.

Share an insight from having read your colleagues’ postings, synthesizing the information to provide new perspectives.

Offer and support an alternative perspective using readings from the classroom or from your own research in the Walden Library.

Validate an idea with your own experience and additional research.

Make a suggestion based on additional evidence drawn from readings or after synthesizing multiple postings.

Expand on your colleagues’ postings by providing additional insights or contrasting perspectives based on readings and evidence.

DISCUSSIONS

Primary Healthcare Nurses and Mental Healthcare Services

Primary healthcare clinics promote mental wellbeing, mental illness prevention and provide essential mental healthcare services. Studies indicate that mental illnesses are some of the significant causes of emotional and physical disabilities worldwide (Dube & Uys, 2016). They affect at least one in every four persons globally. A small portion of the mentally ill persons accesses primary healthcare services. Despite mental disorders affecting such large populations, few people prioritize mental wellbeing while many primary healthcare clinics do not provide adequate mental care services. Despite playing a crucial role in providing healthcare services to all people, PHC nurses often display a negative attitude towards mentally ill persons (Dube & Uys, 2016). As a result, these nurses have a poor identification of psychiatric disorders due to inadequate understanding of how to deal with the conditions. According to World Health Organization, training primary healthcare nurses is essential in enhancing mental health illness identification in clinical settings (Kilbourne et al., 2018). That will improve the nurses’ skills and knowledge in recognizing mental health disorders.

Article Analysis

In essence, nurses serve as the primary healthcare providers in hospitals, and the high mental illness rates at primary healthcare clinics underline the nurses’ significance in mental healthcare services. However, evidence indicates that these nurses have a poor understanding concerning recognition and handling of mental illness. This study assesses the beliefs, attitudes, skills and knowledge regarding psychiatric patient care at primary healthcare clinics among nurses. The authors conducted the investigation in uThungulu Health District in South Africa. They focused on six primary healthcare clinics in the region assessing the prevalent mental healthcare services in these facilities. The researchers conducted a quantitative survey applying a structured questionnaire and used simple descriptive evaluation and a one-way ANOVE to assess the collected data. The findings indicate that 39.0% of the PHC nurses aged between forty-one and fifty years and 92.0% of them were ladies. They also revealed a significant connection between past experiences in dealing with mentally ill persons and nurses’ positive attitudes.

The investigation revealed that primary healthcare nurses’ beliefs and attitudes towards mentally ill persons were positive. However, the nurses lacked adequate knowledge in managing psychiatric patients (Dube & Uys, 2016). Considering the high mental illness prevalence today, hospitals should incorporate mental health services in the primary healthcare clinical settings. The World Health Organization supports the move to integrate mental healthcare services into primary healthcare clinics because patients can receive treatment as a whole without fear of stigmatization (Kilbourne et al., 2018). The use of inferential statistics in this study was significant because it allowed the researchers to compare three independent factors, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs, regarding the main research problem. Overall, incorporating mental healthcare services in the PHC services will ensure all nurses and other staff engaged in managing psychiatric patients have a standard comprehension of their development while complying with the clinical regimens.

References

Dube, F. N., & Uys, L. R. (2016). Integrating mental health care services in primary health care clinics: a survey of primary health care nurses’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. South African Family Practice, 58(3), 119-125.

Kilbourne, A. M., Beck, K., Spaeth‐Rublee, B., Ramanuj, P., O’Brien, R. W., Tomoyasu, N., & Pincus, H. A. (2018). Measuring and improving the quality of mental health care: a global perspective. World psychiatry, 17(1), 30-38.