Role of Family Nurse in the Care of the Mental Health Patient

Mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression require family care. In addition to family care, the role of a family nurse practitioners is vital in the development of care plans, and prescription of medication for mentally ill patients. Thus care for mentally ill patients requires a collaboration of both nurses/medical team and the family of the patient to ensure that both medical and psychosocial care is addressed (Nurjannah, Mills, Usher & Park, 2014). The advantage of family nurse practitioners in the handling of mentally ill patients is that they focus on an organized, systematic and holistic care approach and treat the patients without bias which makes their services to be effective.

Benefits and Barriers to Incorporating the Family Care of the Mental Patients

Benefits

Family care for mentally ill patients has various benefits. It provides financial support to facilitate treatment of the patient. It also gives psychosocial support such as family counseling and outpatient services. The family assists the nurses and doctors with the information on the status of the patients which is useful in examining their patient. Other benefits include ensuring treatment compliance. The family is at the forefront in assisting the patient to be reintegrated into normal life (Durbin, Durbin, Hensel & Deber, 2016).

Barriers

Several issues hinder the incorporation of the family in the care of mental disorder patients. One of the common issues is a socioeconomic challenge which include challenges to raising adequate funds to facilitate treatments of mentally ill patients (Durbin, Durbin, Hensel & Deber, 2016). Besides, psychological factors poor understanding of the mental disorder, and stigmatization of the mentally ill patients hinder family integration into mental healthcare.

References

Durbin, A., Durbin, J., Hensel, J. M., & Deber, R. (2016). Barriers and enablers to integrating mental health into primary care: a policy analysis. The journal of behavioral health services & research, 43(1), 127-139.

Nurjannah, I., Mills, J., Usher, K., & Park, T. (2014). Discharge planning in mental health care: an integrative review of the literature. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 23(9-10), 1175-1185.