Mental Care : The Importance Of Mental Health

Mental health is a complex phenomenon that consists of a range of diagnoses, treatments and outcomes. Recovery from such experiences has historically meant to completely remove all symptoms of illness, but is now currently thought of as regaining a sense of control over and development of a new meaning and purpose in one’s life, rather than feeling defined by the illness. Each individual understands it in their own personal way, likened to a journey towards self-determination, choice, and empowerment.

After reading Puchalski and Ferrell’s book, Making Health Care Whole: Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care,

As I begin my career as an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN), I will have to decide what philosophies I will incorporate into my practice. I believe that holistic care is an effective way to manage the care of a patient. It will also help me learn more about my patients. This concept looks beyond a person’s physical disease, and it includes all aspects of their health and well-being. It requires a provider to consider the patient’s spiritual beliefs, mental needs, emotional status, and environmental influences. I believe that spiritual healing is a major component of physical healing. By incorporating holistic care into my practice, I believe I will provide the patient with the best care available. According to Joel (2013), APRNs that

Spirituality has been in and out of healthcare and has proven effective every time that it is used. Implementing spirituality into healthcare allows for faster recovery times, better interpersonal relationships with their healthcare providers, and a more holistic approach to healthcare. Several approaches to analyzing it have proven it to be effective but is often not taught when educating future nurses. Through the barriers and the controversy spirituality remains as an important aspect of a patient’s recovery process.

Spiritual integration in nursing includes providing care to an individual as a whole, considering their social and mental factors, rather than just the physical symptoms of the disease that are presented subjectively or objectively. Rom 15:1 (New International version), can be interpreted as that the nurses have the responsibility of providing care to the patients, in their vulnerable time of sickness without taking credit for it, because God have chosen them to do so for his own glory. Spirituality can have different definitions, to some it can mean having faith in religion, and to others it can mean inner strength through life experiences that bring inspiration. Whereas, many people do not even know they practice spirituality on daily basis, but as nurses we are part of healing process. Recognizing how patient view their health and spiritual needs, can help speedup healing process. This paper will address my recent interaction with an ill patient, how I applied my spiritual belief, values, and faith, and my strength and weakness and areas of improvement in taking care of patient.

“Spirituality and Stress Relief”, an article composed by the staff of Mayo Clinic, goes over two important components. What is Spirituality? And how does it help with Stress Relief?

According to Wu, Tseng, & Liao (2016), spiritual care is a critical part of holistic care. In addition, in their study special material should be provided for preparation in spiritual care for nurses in order to give comprehensive care. Except the awareness of cultural and ethnic differences, the awareness of spiritual competencies is also vital.

As time passes, the field of health care continually expands and advances. When thinking back to the way health care was portrayed a few decades ago, healing pertained only to the correct administration of medical treatment and scientific interventions. However, it is now clear that spirituality relates to positive health results. In fact, society as a whole is more spiritually diverse now than ever before. Accordingly, health care associates must recognize that providing the highest level of patient care involves understanding different worldviews. By addressing these issues, it is possible to deliver spiritually fulfilling and respectful care for patients with varying religious beliefs.

Mental health within the United states is a very serious issue that has evolved to become more caring and more scientific from its earlier days. Mental illness is the 10th biggest killer in America and a major cause of mass shootings, so there's powerful reasons we need a strong system of treatment for this disease.

Mental health is often overlooked in today’s society. Some people don’t understand the seriousness of mental health towards a person’s and other peoples well being. Mental health can affect many different people. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, “Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experience mental illness in a given year.” (NAMI)Mental health is not acted upon as seriously as it should be, and should be treated like any other illness in the world. Living with poor mental health can affect the rest of your life. Mental health is one of the key components to living a healthy and long life, if your mental health is poor, it can affect your daily life and bring other health obstacles along the way. In today’s news, school shootings, along with other shootings around the world, have been taking place more frequently. The attackers of these attacks are often ruled out to have been suffering from a mental illness. Mental illness, as defined by the CDC, refers to as disorders generally characterized by dysregulation of mood, thought, and/or behavior, as recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, of the American Psychiatric Association.(CDC)

On August 29, 2016, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton released an ambitious plan for addressing the issue of mental health care in the United States1. This plan echoes numerous bipartisan bills that have been produced in Congress over the past several years and seems to be one of the few issues that both sides of the aisle can agree on.2 Earlier this year, a bill providing additional support to mental health care was passed in the House with a 422-22 vote3, so it is now up to the Senate to pass its own reform. If lawmakers fail to send a bill to President Obama before leaves office, which is likely, the onus will fall on the next president to leave their mark. If this turns out to be Ms. Clinton, her stance is obvious. She and the lawmakers working on these issues seem to agree on many important aspects; first and foremost that treatment of mental and physical health should be given the same priority. Other aspects of Clinton’s plan focus on early diagnosis and intervention, federal support for suicide prevention, improved outcomes in the criminal justice system, and integrating the mental and physical health care systems. Ms. Clinton also proposed $5 billion for community health centers to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment in addition to traditional medical care and advocated for the use of telemedicine to help address the shortage of mental health professionals. While the idea of these reforms has widespread support, one of the most likely obstacles

Walker and Avant’s concept analysis model was used to analyze the concept of spiritual care to provide an inclusive definition of the spiritual care in nursing. The concept analysis was done based on Jean Watson’s caring theory. According to Watson spiritual care is the core of nursing care. Spirituality is a critical component in nursing to provide holistic care to the patient. Even though the increasing awareness of spiritual care present, such care is lacking in nursing (Ramezani et al., 2014).

This semester I have learned that the role of a spiritual carer is crucial to the care of patients. A spiritual facilitator recognises when a patient requires spiritual support and is willing and able to meet the patient at this point of need. Spiritual care does not necessarily have to involve religious beliefs and practices or personal faith (nurse or patient), nor does the role of a spiritual carer only belong to a chaplain or religious teacher. Spiritual carers create an environment

Ramezani, M., Ahmadi, F., Mohammadi, E., & Kazemnejad, A. (2014). Spiritual care in nursing: a concept analysis: Spiritual care in nursing. International Nursing Review, 61(2), 211–219.

Incorporating religion and spiritually is an important part of providing culturally competent care (Sherman et al., 2015). Given the