Assessment of Nurses' Role in Caring for Psychiatric Patients Receiving Electro-Convulsive Therapy

Abstract

Psychiatric nurses have an important and active role to play in insuring safety for patients undergoing ECT, (Electric-convulsive treatment) and receive accurate information about the treatment. The role of psychiatric nurses in monitoring and preventing complications of ECT is very important, since they provide quality patient care which has become an important factor in success of such management method. This study aimed at assessing the role of nurses caring for the psychiatric patients who receive electro-convulsive therapy. This study followed a descriptive design. The study was carried out at “Psychiatric Department in Tanta University Hospital" and "Psychiatric and Mental Health Hospital" in Tanta. The subjects of the study encompassed all nurses working in the previous settings, (n = 50 nurses). Two tools were used to collect the necessary data: the first was the nurses' knowledge questionnaire, developed by the researchers and divided into two parts: general characteristics of nurses and nurses' Knowledge about ECT. The second was an Observation check list to identify quality of clinical care of patients receiving ECT. The main results revealed that the majority of the study subjects have acceptable level of knowledge about different aspects of ECT but their observed performance was below the expected standardized level. Such level needs to be upgraded using multiple approaches since it proved to be insensitive to years of experiences.

Keywords

• nurse caring
• psychiatric patients
• electro-convulsive therapy