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Idalmis Espinosa

Week 10-Main Discussion

COLLAPSE

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                                                   NURS 6630: Psychopharmacologic Approaches to Treatment of Psychopathology

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Nurses are always described as change agents because of their ability to influence change in the healthcare system (Rafferty, 2018). They can do this in the organizational level, in the local and community level, at the state level and at the national level. Being a change agent means being able to find gaps in practice and areas that raise concern about the health and interest of patients, of health organizations and colleagues. For the purpose of this discussion, the focus shall be on the interest of psychiatric and mental health patients. This is a group of patients or a population of patients that is considered as vulnerable. This is because of the fact that they may not in all circumstances be able to make their own decisions regarding their treatment and any other forms of clinical interventions. Mental health patients suffer from stigmatization from everyone around them including health workers and their families. This should not be the case since mental illness is just like any other illness that can be effectively managed and treated using the right interventions. Stigmatization that this patient population faces is mainly due to lack of knowledge by the public about mental illnesses. Stigmatization has very negative implications for mental health patients. They do not only have to cope with the devastating aspects of their illness but they also have to go through so much prejudice as well as social exclusion (Rossler, 2016). The society at large needs to understand mental illnesses in order to change their attitudes towards those that have mental illnesses.

            Implementing a social change in the community can be done through education about mental illness. There is need to create awareness about this patient population and make sure that the community understand that being mentally ill is only a form of morbidity that can be managed through pharmacological interventions and support from professionals and family as well as friends. The society needs to know that most mental health issues are exacerbated by stress and pressure from the community and the last thing this patient population needs is social exclusion and stigmatization. First, the community should know that it is okay to openly speak about mental health. Some communities consider mental illness a taboo and they use different words to describe mentally ill patients such as psycho or crazy and at times they consider them as persons that are dangerous (Abolfotouh et al., 2019). These words have negative connotations and they are triggers for social exclusion. The community should know that even mentally ill patients are capable of making friends and have fulfilling friendship and relationships. This means that they need love, acceptance, support and inclusion in the society just like any other person.

            The best way to end stigma as noted is through the creation of awareness. Awareness builds knowledge and ends all forms of stigma including institutional stigma. In some cases, there is actually needs to advocate for equal rights for everyone including persons that are mentally ill. For instance, stigma does not only occur in the form of isolation. Mentally ill persons are also stigmatized through discrimination in areas such as employment, housing and even access to health services (DeFreitas, Crone, DeLeon & Ajayi, 2018). There is need to stand against such institutions and expose them for this form of discrimination. Also, when caring for mentally ill patients, they should be educated about their rights. They need to know that being mentally ill does not make them any less worth of employment or better housing opportunities. Being able to stand for themselves will empower the population to show the rest of the public that they are just like them and they should be treated differently.

References

Abolfotouh, M. A., Almutairi, A. F., Almutairi, Z., Salam, M., Alhashem, A., Adlan, A. A., & Modayfer, O. (2019). Attitudes toward mental illness, mentally ill persons, and help-seeking among the Saudi public and sociodemographic correlates. Psychology research and behavior management, 12, 45

DeFreitas, S. C., Crone, T., DeLeon, M., & Ajayi, A. (2018). Perceived and personal mental health stigma in Latino and African American college students. Frontiers in public health, 6, 49

Rafferty, A. M. (2018). Nurses as change agents for a better future in health care: the politics of drift and dilution. Health Economics, Policy and Law, 13(3-4), 475-491

Rossler, W. (2016). The stigma of mental disorders: a millennia-long history of social exclusion and prejudices. EMBO Rep, 17(9), 1250-3

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