Examination Of The Knowledge And Practices Of Nurses About Consultation Liaison Psychiatry Nursing

Abstract

Objectives: This study was conducted to examine the knowledge and practices of nurses in CLP nursing. Methods: This descriptive study was carried out with 136 nurses working in Ege University internal medicine and surgical units between April and June 2017. The study data were collected with an Introductory Information Form and a CLP Nursing Questionnaire. The number and percentage distribution were used in the evaluation of the data. Results: The average age of the nurses participating in the study was 33.94 +/- 5.69, 91.2% of them were women, all of them had license degrees, 70.6% were in internal medicine clinics, 29.4% were in surgical units, 42.6% were in clinics and 31.6% had worked between one and five years. The study determined that 65.4% of the nurses encountered a patient suffering from mental distress, 32.4% encountered a health professional suffering from mental distress, and 44.9% had difficulties while giving care to patients suffering from mental distress. The study found that 44.9% of the nurses could define biopsychosocial care, 27.2% could define psychosocial care and 96.3% considered psychosocial care to be important. Of the nurses, 4.4% knew the definition of CLP nursing, 94.9% had not worked with consultation-liaison psychiatric nurses before, and 74.3% needed the CLP nurse to work with them in the clinic. Conclusion: The study concluded that the nurses had difficulty in giving care to patients suffering from mental distress, they needed support from a professional in this field, and they needed information regarding biopsychosocial care, psychosocial care, consultation-liaison psychiatric nursing. In light of these results, it has been proposed to open and disseminate master programs for the training of consultation-liaison psychiatric nurses to meet the need.