the impact of inpatient suicide on psychiatric nurses and their need for support住院病人自杀的影响精神科护士和他们需要的支持.pdf

Takahashi et al. BMC Psychiatry 2011, 11:38 /1471-244X/11/38 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access The impact of inpatient suicide on psychiatric nurses and their need for support 1† 2 2† 3 2 2 Chizuko Takahashi , Fuminori Chida , Hikaru Nakamura , Hiroshi Akasaka , Junko Yagi , Atsuhiko Koeda , Eri Takusari2, Kotaro Otsuka2*†, Akio Sakai2† Abstract Background: The nurses working in psychiatric hospitals and wards are prone to encounter completed suicides. The research was conducted to examine post-suicide stress in nurses and the availability of suicide-related mental health care services and education. Methods: Experiences with inpatient suicide were investigated using an anonymous, self-reported questionnaire, which was, along with the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, administered to 531 psychiatric nurses. Results: The rate of nurses who had encountered patient suicide was 55.0%. The mean Impact of Event Scale- Revised (IES-R) score was 11.4. The proportion of respondents at a high risk (≥ 25 on the 88-point IES-R score) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was 13.7%. However, only 15.8% of respondents indicated that they had access to post-suicide mental health care programmes. The survey also revealed a low rate of nurses who reported attending in-hospital seminars on suicide prevention or mental health care for nurses (26.4% and 12.8%, respectively). Conclusions: These results indicated that nurses exposed to inpatient suicide suffer significant mental distress. However, the low availability of systematic post-suicide mental health care programmes for such nurses and the lack of suicide-related education initiatives and mental health care for nurses are problematic. The situ