The nurse as a professional (mental health) Essay

The nurse as a professional (mental health) - Essay Example For instance, children who obtained psychological treatments for psychosomatic and behavioural problems experienced hardly any primary care visits and received less healthcare services after treatment (Finney, Riley, & Cataldo 1991). There are also indications that group counselling enhances the functioning of the immune system, pregnancy rates, and the quality of life of cancer patients. This fact is known to a large number of mental health nurses (Aldridge 2004). Even though the significance of the emotional health of patients and its connection to physical well being has been supported for several years, practitioners have been disappointed in determining how to enhance access to mental health (Hemmings 2000). Mental health equality, which needs insurance companies to offer reasonable coverage for mental health and physical care, has currently been the major goal for enhancing such success. Integrated Care in Mental Health Contexts Inopportunely, mental health equality may not be a universal remedy, as several professionals think. Insurance companies, for example, if obliged by government policy to give equitable coverage, will transfer the extra costs to the public through co-payments and higher premiums, which will also restrict mental healthcare access, although indirectly (Kent & Hersen 2000). Per se, the main objective of this essay is to draw the attention of mental health nurses to a materialising development, integrated care, and recommend techniques for taking part in an integrated care process. Integrated care, a new development, gives much assurance to patients and all healthcare employees. Integrated care is the enhanced cooperation of mental health practitioners within primary care contexts (Lesser 2000). More particularly, integrated care is quite successful when services are given through co-location, specifically, when mental health nurses work collaboratively with primary care physicians in the same office (McCulloch, Friedli & Parker 2002). In this form of integrated set up, mental health nurses and PCPs discuss frequently the needs and demands of patients, in several cases, visit a patient together to identify the most suitable treatment process (Keady, Clarke & Page 2007). Research on integrated care has shown major positive outcomes, such as: reduced despair and improved quality of life of adults in relation to a ‘treated’ control group, and anxiety-free periods for individuals with panic disorder, reduced in-patient admissions, and reduced patient depression levels (Knapp, McDaid, Mossialos & Thornicroft 2007). Furthermore, evidence indicates that patients choose to receive mental health care within their primary care environment, reveal fewer stigmas about obtaining psychiatric help, and feel comforted by the thought that their nurses are involved in therapy (Knapp et al. 2007). Ultimately, in a current analysis of more than 60 integrated care investigations, Blount (2003) discovered that, generally, integrated care generated enhanced medical outcomes, enhanced provider and patient satisfaction, and enhanced cost effectiveness. Grounds for the effective outcomes involve the ease of mental healthcare access within a common context, but also involve the involvement of nurses in the mental healthcare needs of patients as well as the reprieve of nurses by the thought th