Paper
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Consensus Building on the Work of Mental Health Nurses in Ireland: Developing a Nursing Minimum Dataset for Irish Mental Health Nursing
P. Anne Scott, RGN, MSc, PhD1, Margaret P. Treacy, RGN, BA, MSc, PhD2, Padraig MacNeela, BSc, PhD3, Abbey Hyde, RGN, BSocSc, MSocSc, PhD2, Jonathan Drennan, MEd, BSc, RGN, RPN, RNMH, RNT4, Anne Walsh-Danishmandi, Dr5, Roisin Morris, BA, DBS, MSc1, Pam Henry, MSc5, Michelle Butler, Dr6, Anne Byrne, RGN, MSc6, Melissa Corbally, RGN, MSc5, and Kate Irving, Dr6. (1) School of Nursing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, (2) School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College, Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, (3) Department of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland, (4) School of Nursing & Midwifery, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, (5) School of Nursing, DCU, Dublin 9, Ireland, (6) School of Nursing and Midwifery, UCD, Dublin, Ireland
| Learning Objective #1: Understand the development of a nursing minimum dataset for mental health nurses in Ireland using a multi-method approach |
| Learning Objective #2: Understand how consensus building led to a practice-focused depiction of the tasks that mental health nurses do |
Mental health nurses provide an essential input to the care of clients with psychological and social difficulties. Despite this, consensus is lacking on the activities carried out in direct and indirect contributions to client care. The aim of the study was to devise a robust, practice-focused depiction of the tasks and roles that mental health nurses perform. The Delphi survey method is often utilised as a research method where there is lack of consensus on a particular topic. In the current study, a three-round Delphi survey was carried out to gain agreement between practitioners on the principal elements of mental health nursing care in Ireland. The respondents were mental health nurses working in acute admission units, high dependency community hostels and day centres. Focus group discussions, documentary analysis as well as reviews of nursing minimum data sets and classification systems were carried out to gain information on the patient problems, nursing interventions and patient outcomes that mental health nurses come across in their work. This information was then used to develop items for the Delphi survey. Participants were asked to rate frequency of occurrence and relative importance of survey items, they were also asked to rate relevance of items to their area of work and how much they agreed that the items were core to their nursing activity. Participants were also invited to suggest item additions and revisions. The results to be presented focus on the priority respondents gave to particular patient phenomena, nursing interventions and patient outcomes across the different areas of mental health nursing in Ireland. The use of the Delphi method in developing a nursing minimum dataset will also be addressed.