The first consultation

The first time patient consultation with a psychiatrics nurse is the first step in a patient's therapeutic procedure when he/she consults a mental health center. Obviously, its importance is based on three aspects: 1. the reception and initial aid provided to a patient, 2. determining the degree of the patient's needs and recording pertinent information in a clinical file which will allow for better planning of successive treatment, 3. in a diagnosis of a patient's problems and selecting the most opportune nursing care plan. We wish to place special stress on those problems and treatments which we refer to as "intra-consultation" and which enable better communication and patient confidence with respect to successive ongoing treatment and "extra-consultation" care; these features are those precise ones which make first time patient consultation a nurse's activity. This study refers to 500 consultations which occurred during 1996-97 under the auspices of a general study of basic nursing care plans.