Patients who are physically and mentally ill are increasingly cared for
by local general hospital medical-surgical nurses. The purpose of this
descriptive survey study was to (a) describe the attitudes of medical-surgical
nurses towards the mentally ill, (b) identify factors that affect medical-surgical
nurses' caring for mentally ill patients, and (c) identify and describe the
relationship between medical-surgical nurses' attitudes towards the mentally
ill and selected variables.
The sample consisted of 113 randomly selected registered nurses
employed full or part-time on medical or surgical units in general hospitals
throughout British Columbia. Attitudes were measured using the Opinions
About Mental Illness (OMI) developed by Cohen and Struening (1962).
Participants also completed a general demographic questionnaire which
asked what factors nurses felt affected their ability to care for mentally ill
patients.
The majority of the nurses in the sample were prepared at the diploma
level and worked in urban areas. The average length of nursing experience
was 13 years. Most respondents had psychiatric clinical experience in their
education with no further inservices or educational training on care of
mentally ill patients. Approximately one-half of the nurses had a personal
experience with individuals diagnosed with a mental illness.
Data revealed lower scores than previous studies on the OMI factors
of Authoritarianism, Social Restrictiveness, and Interpersonal Etiology,
indicating a more positive view of the mentally ill. Higher scores on
Benevolence and lower scores on Mental Hygiene Ideology indicate a
paternalistic need to care for these patients and a less optimistic view of
mental illness.
Computation of the Pearson r coefficient revealed that the greatest
influence in decreasing socially restrictive attitudes towards the mentally ill is
advanced education beyond the diploma level. Findings also indicated that
nurses who did not have additional education in the care of the mentally ill
were more likely to ascribe to a belief in Interpersonal Etiology as a cause of
mental illness than were those with further education. Major factors that
nurses identified as affecting their ability to care for mentally ill patients were a
lack of time to care for mentally ill patients, and a lack of knowledge and
experience with mentally ill patients. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/6034 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Quee, Kathy |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 2952544 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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