Hope and interpersonal psychiatric/mental health nursing: a systematic review of the literature – part one

Abstract

Psychiatric/mental health (P/MH) nursing is inherently an interpersonal endeavour; one that includes a broad range of 'helping activities'. The interpersonal activities and skills are enshrined in our underpinning philosophy, explored and learned in our curricula (all around the world) and enacted in our everyday clinical practice. Within this interpersonal context and framework, it is heartening to see that understated, abstract and yet-lasting concepts such as hope are gaining more acknowledgement, recognition and subsequently attention. While it is recognized that hope in mental health care is increasingly becoming the focal point of disciplined inquiry, the authors believe it is perhaps necessary and timely to re-examine these two concepts, namely: interpersonal P/MH nursing and hope/inspiring hope in people with mental health problems. Accordingly, this two-part article reports on a systematic review of the literature that focuses on hope (inspiring hope) within interpersonal (counselling) focused P/MH nursing. Part one focuses on the method used and the results, indicating that a total of 57 articles were included in the review: 39 were categorized as empirical studies involving either a quantitative or qualitative methodological design, and 18 were considered theoretical/clinical/review articles. Though not a product of an empirical investigation per se, it was clear that many of the articles shared and covered common ground. Thus, these were arranged into six 'loose' thematic groupings. The first three of these areas, schizophrenia, suicidality and depression form the remainder of part one of this article, and the remaining areas are included in part two.

A qualitative study of mental health nurse identities: Many roles, one profession

“…When considered with the willingness of MHN to engage in this role, this theme suggests training and education aimed at developing psychological therapy capabilities in MHN will, at least in part, commence from pre-existing capabilities. This connection between MHN capabilities and those required for offering therapies reflects key findings by Burnard (2003), as well as Koehn and Cutcliffe (2007), who highlight interpersonal relating as being a pivotal ability in both talkbased therapies and mental health nursing.…”

Creating a space for recovery‐focused psychiatric nursing care

“…From a recovery perspective, words, deeds, descriptions and interpretations are to be shared through recovery processes, but bio‐psychiatry shuns erstwhile accounts of ‘problems with living’ (Szasz 1984). One of the main constituents valued, particularly within non‐medicalized mental health nursing practice is hope (Koehn and Cutcliffe 2007; Cutcliffe and Koehn 2007), and hope is also an important virtue found in recovery literature (see for example Jacobson and Greenley 2001; Andresen, Oades and Caputi 2003; Resnick, Rosenheck and Lehman 2004). One of the working principles of Soteria was that staff would have a high expectation for clients to recover.…”

The Inspiration of Hope in Substance Abuse Counseling

“…In the area of substance abuse, hope is recognized in the counseling literature as a critical component of recovery (Metzger, 1988; Miller & Rollnick, 2002); however, there is a dearth of research on hope in the substance abuse field. The paucity of research might be regarded as counterintuitive given the worldwide extent of the problem (World Health Organization, 2009), the chronic nature of addiction, and the role that hope plays in recovery from other chronic mental health concerns (Cutcliffe & Koehn, 2007; Koehn & Cutcliffe, 2007). The World Health Organization (2009) purports that there are at least 15.3 million persons who have drug use disorders and a further 76.3 million persons with alcohol use disorders worldwide.…”