DIPLOMA IN NURSING

SEMESTER 4

MENTAL HEALTH NURSING

NURS 5152

LECTURERS NAME : MADAM NARIMA

GROUP 1
No
.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Name

No. ID

NIMROD JORING
KELVIN NGU JIAN PIAO
NIVETHA A/P MANIAM
NOR FAZLINDA BT BAHARUDIN
JESSIE JOSIUS
CHUTIMA A/P PRAKWIT

3312
3288
3294
3296
3287
3280

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INDEX

N
O
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

CONTENT
Introduction
Outcomes of Community Mental Health Services
Roles of Mental Health Nurses
Conclusion
References and Citations

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PAGE
4
5-6
7-8
9
10

INTRODUCTION

Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual

realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work
productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.
Mental health is everyones business. Each individual have times when he or she feel
down or stressed or frightened. Most of the time those feelings pass. But sometimes they
develop into a more serious problem and that could happen to any one of us. Everyone is
different a person may feel bounce back from a setback while another may feel weighed
down by it for a long time.
A persons mental health does not stay the same always. It can change as
circumstances change and as you move through different stages of life. There is a stigma
attached to mental health problems. This means that people feel uncomfortable about
them and dont talk about them much. Many people dont even feel comfortable talking
about their feelings. But its healthy to know and say how you are feeling. Mental health
problems range from the worries we all experience as part of everyday life to serious long
term conditions.
The majority of people who experience mental health problems can get over them
to learn or live with them, especially if they get help early on. Mental health problems are
usually defined and classified to enable professionals to refer people for appropriate care
and treatment. But some diagnoses are controversial and there is much concern in the
mental health field that people are too often treated according to or described by their
label. This can have a profound effect on their quality of life. Nevertheless, diagnoses
remain the most usual way of dividing and classifying symptoms into group.
As a mental health nurse are play an important role in helping patients and will
need to show empathy along with excellent observational skills. Not only that, mental
health nurses provide support to people suffering from various mental health conditions.

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The Outcomes of Community Mental Health Services

The three overall objectives can be equally applied to the formulation of
objectives for mental health policy.
Improving the health of the population: The policy should clearly set out its
objectives for improving the mental health of the population. Ideally, mental health
outcome indicators should be used, such as quality of life, mental functioning, disability,
morbidity and mortality. In developing countries, however, information systems are
generally poorly developed and ministries of health may have to use some process
indicators, e.g. access and service utilization.
Responding to peoples expectations: In mental health this objective can relate
to both, respect for persons (human rights, dignity, confidentiality, and autonomy with
respect to choice) and client-focused orientation (patient satisfaction, prompt attention,
quality of amenities, access to social support networks and choice of provider).
Providing financial protection against the cost of ill-health: Among the issues
of relevance to mental health are equity in the distribution of resources between
geographical regions, availability of basic psychotropic medication, parity of mental
health services with general health services, and the allocation of an appropriate
percentage of the health budget to mental health.
Some examples of mental health objectives which are formulated in line with the
three above factors are listed below.
Discharge patients from institutional care to comprehensive community based
programmer (deinstitutionalization).
Provide evidence based and cost-effective treatment to all people who need
mental health care.
Promote the human rights of people with mental disabilities.
Integrate mental health into general health care.
Promote good mental health through sectoral and intersectoral initiatives.
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Statistic of Mental Health in Malaysia

According to the 2011 National Health and Morbidity Survey, 12% of
Malaysians aged between 18 and 60 are suffering from some form of mental
illness.
One of the percentage affected by mental illness, depression made up 2%,
psychosis 1%, worrying 1.8%, while the rest involved anxiety disorder, which is a
chronic disease, and mild mental diseases.
There were more men than women, the gender ratio being 2.9:1 ( males:
females), and ethnicity-wise, Indians had the highest suicide rate of 3.67 per
100,000. The Malays and Bumiputera of Sabah and Sarawak had lower rates of
0.32 to 0.37 per 100,000. The onset of psychotic illness is 15 to 24 years of ages
for males, and 24 to 35 for females.
In Malaysia, our health indices remain one of the best in the developing
world. We have one psychiatrist to a population of 115,000, which is admirable,
although ideally, as per the WHO recommendation, it should be one psychiatrist
to a population of 50,000.
With a total of 252 psychiatrists and 80 clinical psychologists, as well as
four mental institutions and 48 government hospitals that provide psychiatric and
mental health services, Malaysia is well prepared.

Roles of Mental Health Nurses

The clinical practice of psychiatric nursing occurs at two levels - basic and
advanced. At the basic level, registered nurses work with individuals, families, groups,
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and communities to assess mental health needs, develop diagnoses, and plan, implement,
and evaluate nursing care. Basic level nursing practice characterized by interventions that
promote and foster health, assess dysfunction, assist clients to regain or improve their
coping abilities, and prevents further disability. These interventions focus on psychiatricmental health clients and include health promotion, preventive management of a
therapeutic environment; assisting client with self-care activities; administering and
monitoring psychobiological treatment regimens; health teaching; including psycho
education; crisis intervention and counseling and case management.
Registered nurses who seek additional education and obtain a masters or doctoral
degree can become advanced practice nurses in the specialty (Psychiatric-Mental Health
Clinical Nurse Specialists or Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners). After post-master
supervised clinical practice, they can become certified as specialists in adult, or child and
adolescent psychiatric-mental health nursing. In addition to the functions performed at
the basic level, these advanced practice nurses assess, diagnose, and treat psychiatric
disorders and potential mental health problems. They provide the full range of primary
mental health care services to individuals, families, groups and communities, function as
psychotherapists, and in some states they have the authority to prescribe medications.
Psychiatric-mental health nurses in advanced practices are qualified to practice
independently to offer direct care services in settings such as agencies, communities,
homes, hospitals, and offices. Some psychiatric-mental health clinical nurse specialists
practice consultation/liaison nursing, delivering mental health services to physically ill
patients or consultation to staff in general medical settings.

Because of their broad background in biological, pharmacological, sociological,

and psychological sciences, psychiatric-mental health nurses are a rich resource as
providers of psychiatric-mental health services and patient care partners for the
consumers of those services.
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Conclusion

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The mental health services are constantly in a state of flux due to alterations at the
supply side of care, for example attempts to make service more efficient and effective
results from practice of psychiatric nursing at two levels - basic and advanced. A new
Medicaid service was also established to serve people who were suffering from a
"chronic mental illness. Regarding the statistic of Mental Health in Malaysia 12% of
Malaysians aged between 18 and 60 are suffering from some form of mental illness. Its
must to overcome by set about identifying the needs of people? Provider of health care
especially Nurses are the main role. Nurses need to know; what users need in the way of
giving care, what is needed in a particular area, in order to achieve an improvement in the
health of the population. It is difficult to assess all needs at the same times, since needsassessment exercises require funding and can be time consuming like any other piece of
research. Conducting a needs assessment among people with specific condition will
highlight needs that might be specific to mental illness only, but not to the general
population or to people with other conditions. The way a needs assessment is conducted
can have an influence on its outcome.
The case study shows that the nurse has a main role in the provision of mental
health services by improve their medical profession during work in a variety of hospital
and community settings. Every psychiatric nurse in mental health may also specialize in
community and in hospital. Psychiatric nurse has duties that may include assessing
patients who are mentally ill, observation, helping patients take part in activities, giving
medication, observing if the medication is working, assisting in behaviour change
programs or visiting patients who are at home. Nurses can work in public or private
hospitals, institutes, correctional institutes, mental care facilities and homes of the
patients.
As a conclusion, Psychiatric mental health nursing is a nursing specialty that help in
the provide a full range of primary mental health care services to individuals, families,
groups and communities, function as psychotherapists.

References
1

http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/en/policy_plans_revision.pdf
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2
3

Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow (NHT) at http://www.nursesource.org/ ,

Elizabeth Dole and Luci Baines Johnson
http://www.malaysiandigest.com/opinion/469592-more-malaysians-willexperience-mental-illness-by-2020.html

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