Registered nurses (RN) coordinate acute mental health units on a 24-hour basis and it behoves researchers to actually ask these nurses what they think contributes to their ability to work with patients in optimistic ways. In this study, 40 RN working in acute mental health settings were asked a series of questions to explore positive aspects of nursing work, which includes therapeutic optimism. Three themes were identified: (i) different ways nurses foster therapeutic optimism; (ii) perceptions of how an optimistic environment is fostered, and (iii) improvement of ward culture. Findings show the pivotal role mental health nurses have in improving teamwork, good communication, sharing, and collaboration, in addition to preceptoring and supervision. Furthermore, effective clinical management is essential to therapeutic optimism and, in this research, is considered to be the aspect of acute mental health nursing most relevant to improving the ward culture.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Health Sciences
Research Group:	Nursing
Research Field:	Mental health nursing
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Public health (excl. specific population health)
Objective Field:	Mental health
UTAS Author:	Cleary, M (Professor Michelle Cleary)
ID Code:	107879
Year Published:	2012
Web of Science® Times Cited:	10
Deposited By:	Health Sciences
Deposited On:	2016-03-30
Last Modified:	2017-11-02
Downloads:	0