OBJECTIVES: This study identified health status variables related to suicide by elderly persons and compared the health status of suicide decedents with natural death and injury decedents. METHODS: Data were obtained from the 1986 National Mortality Followback Survey. RESULTS: When other variables were controlled for, suicide decedents were significantly more likely than injury decedents to have a history of cancer (odds ratio [OR] = 51.94), moderate (OR = 29.37) or heavy (OR = 22.87) alcohol use, and mental or emotional disorder (OR = 10.91) and to be White (OR = 18.54) and male (OR = 9.12). CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that a history of cancer should be considered as a risk for suicide in the elderly.
Recovery from mental illness is a process that involves personal decision-making in many areas. Nurses are in a unique position to assist individuals in assessing their personal health status and integrating health behaviors into their recovery plans. The use of assessment tools, motivational interviewing techniques, and recovery planning can help individuals make decisions about their health, try out new behaviors, and integrate healthy living behaviors into a recovery plan and activities. This role of the nurse in this process is outlined, strategies are described, and outcome examples are provided.
Mental health care is undergoing many changes that affect families, which continue to provide much of the day-to-day care for mentally ill persons. This article reviews the history of mental health care in the United States from 1940 to the present as it has changed from a system of programs providing institutional care to a system of programs providing community and family care. Mental health policy has shifted in response to widely held values and assumptions about mental illness and caregiving roles. The pertinent literature that addresses the effects of family-focused research on the formation and evaluation of treatment programs is reviewed. Recommendations are made for policy initiatives that consider family caregiving. The emergent roles of nurses in the policy arena are also discussed.
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