Promoting Self-Care Management Among Persons With Serious Mental Illness and HIV

Abstract

People with a serious mental illness (SMI) along with HIV have complex health conditions. This population also has high rates of poverty, difficulty in sustaining regular housing, and limited supportive networks. Typically, the combination of psychotropic and HIV medication regimens is complicated, changes frequently, and requires coordination among multiple providers. Furthermore, fragmented and divided primary health care and mental health care systems present substantial barriers for these individuals and for the public health nurses who care for them. In this paper, we present “real world” case studies of individuals with SMI and HIV and the self-care management strategies used by nurses to address medication and treatment management, build interpersonal skills, and develop sustainable health networks. The case studies can be used for quality improvement discussions among practicing public health nurses and for instructing nursing students in a self-care management approach.

Learning to manage a mental health condition: Caring for the self and ‘normalizing’ identity at work

“…So far, research on disabilities has drawn attention to matters of diversity disclosure and care (Lindsay et al, 2013), or to team learning (Zhu et al, 2019). In terms of individual learning to self-manage an MHC, some studies have addressed the perspective of the care professional (Bennett and Baikie, 2003;Hanrahan et al, 2011), but very few have explored this empirically or in relation to people with MHC themselves (Randall and Munro, 2010), especially at work through a focus on identity (Brewis, 2004). This article's findings are supported by the more critical literature where identities are seen not only in terms of how they are an effect of power, but also a condition and consequence of resistance (Foucault, 2004: 280;Reed and Thomas, 2020).…”