The nursing process: improving psychiatric admission assessment?

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Abstract
The nursing process is a philosophy of individualized patient care, which states that all care should be planned on the basis of a nursing evaluation of patients' problems. The first stage of the nursing process is assessment, which for good planning requires more information about patients than is usually collected. In this study, in a psychiatric setting, an exploratory first phase was carried out to investigate whether the current admission assessment procedure assisted systematic care planning. The results revealed that nurses were dissatisfied with the admission assessment procedure, although half of them had received no training in the patient-centred approach. During phase 2 of the study a structured assessment form was introduced into two wards in separate hospitals for a period of 3 months. In order to assess the form's usefulness in identifying patients' nursing needs, and its acceptability to patients, an evaluative third phase was undertaken. Respondents recorded satisfaction with the structured form in practice, whilst analysis of care plan statements suggested that assessment had improved. The patients interviewed found the questions acceptable and viewed the assessment as a valued opportunity to talk to their nurse.