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Mental Health Staff For Protected Therapeutic Time Within Adult Psychiatric Wards

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In the healthcare profession practice is guided by ever-evolving research that helps determine best practice policies and protocols, allowing clinicians to provide the best care possible to their clients. However, much of psychiatric nursing care is characterized by subjective or immeasurable interventions and thus, important areas such as the benefits of therapeutic time with clients are relatively understudied and may also be undervalued. As psychiatric nurses I believe that our therapeutic communication skills are one of our most valuable tools, just as important as the medical interventions that we also carry out. For this paper the article I will be reviewing is Thomson and Hamilton 's (2012) qualitative study " Attitudes of Mental …show more content…

He is also a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (Thomson & Hamilton, 2012). Although these qualifications sound a bit different than Canadian designations, it is clear that both authors are medical doctors who have additional training in the area of psychiatry. The intended audience for this article is not explicitly stated however, it is published in the Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing so it seems to be aimed at healthcare professionals who would have access to it. It is a international nursing journal so the intended audience seems to be focused on nurses however, this type of article would also be helpful for fellow researchers who want to know what research has already been carried out and the results, as well as what future direction they should take for their own research.
Purpose/Research Question The question that the author 's wanted to investigate was what the attitudes of nursing and medical staff were towards protected therapeutic time with clients. They defined therapeutic time as regular uninterrupted periods of time that nurses spend with their clients, participating together in activities such as arts and crafts, board games, relaxation therapy, etc (Thomson & Hamilton, 2012). Prior research suggested that therapeutic time is beneficial to clients but that it is also lacking in hospital wards, therefore Thomson and Hamilton (2012)

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