Mental health intensive care: the nurses'experience and perceptions of a new unit

This paper describes a qualitative research study which explored the practices and views of nurses working on a new Mental Health Intensive Care Unit A review of the literature identified the main aspects of intensive care provision (1) physical security, (2) characteristics of the patient group, (3) staff-patient ratios, (4) therapeutic environment and (5) multi-agency involvement Twenty-one periods of participant observation helped form the questions for a semi structured in-depth tape recorded interview in which 11 out of a total of 16 trained nurses took part The information is categorized and the discussion is informed by observation of practice The nurses perceived the following as the main issues that the physical environment is inadequate for security, that the patient group appears to have the common characteristic of being unwanted in other clinical settings, that the staff-patient ratio is inadequate and that their vision of the nature of a therapeutic environment is vague