NURSING 3004 Mental Health Nursing
Question:
When it comes to his appointment time, the duty doctor asks you to sit in and assist him with the interview.
The young woman gives her name as Amelia.
Amelia is attentive and cooperative. She keeps good eye contact although fidgets with her hair and cloths while talking. She describes to the doctor about becoming increasingly nervous about cameras watching her at home. Asked what she does in response to the cameras, she says she no longer goes home and instead lives in her car. When you encourage her to talk more about the cameras she gives you a lot of detail about “spying and also mentions that voices tell her they are watching her because she is a bad person.
She says she is scared and that her friend persuaded her to come and talk to the doctor and get some medication. Following a basic physical check-up and questions about her general health, the doctor He is provided with a script for 5mg olanzapine nocte for symptoms of a psychosis. He expressed concern about her well-being and asks you to talk to her before leaving the clinic to ensure she has adequate support. He made an appointment to see Amelia the next day.
Four short essay questions
1. Describe the key interpersonal skills you would have used in this interview to engage with Amelia.
2. The doctor stated that Amelia has symptoms of a psychosis. Using correct clinical terms, describe three important signs and symptoms from the scenario that you agree would support the doctor’s clinical opinion.
3. The doctor prescribed 5mg olanzapine nocte` for Amelia. Describe the education you will need to provide to her before she leaves the clinic.
4. Explain why you would need to ensure “adequate support†for Amelia before she leaves the clinic.
Answer:
Personal stress management is required by nurse while interviewing Amelia because nurse should not be influenced by her medical and psychological condition. Nurse should remain strong and should not become emotional. By virtue of this, there would not be distraction for Amelia at the time of interview process. Nurse should maintain healthy atmosphere during interview session. For this purpose nurse should possesses quality of humor. This quality of humor would relieve Amelia from stress and she would feel more comfortable in interview. This atmosphere also gives Amelia feeling of freedom and she would share everything about her. Humor during interview process also makes Amelia to forget about her painful experience. Due to this she would discuss with nurse about her condition without any burden of illness (Sellman and Snelling, 2014).
Another prominent symptom observed in Amelia is hallucination. Hallucination is defined as a sensory perception by a person. These sensory perceptions are present in the absence of external stimuli. Patients with hallucination have feeling of seeing, smelling, feeling and hearing without its existence. People with hallucination might feel that somebody is talking to them when they are alone in the room. In case of Amelia also she is having hallucination that she is hearing sounds like her family members are watching her because she is a bad person. Hallucinated voices can talk about a person or talk to the person. In case of Amelia, these voices are talking to her. Moreover, these hallucinated voices are not always negative. These can be positive also. However, in case of Amelia these voices are negative for Amelia. Another psychosis symptom observed in Amelia is lack of insight. People with psychotic disorders are often having feeling that their delusions and hallucinations are true. In reality, it is not the truth. Due to this, these people develop negative thought process and they are afraid of most of things. In this case, Amelia expressed that she is scared. She is scared because she developed strong feeling of existence of non-existing things. They are frightened to small things and distressed due to confused state of mind. Due to this lack of insight, people with psychosis are not able to make proper decisions (Harvey and Walker, 2013).
Olanzapine changes thinking in a person hence she should not perform activities like driving and any other activities where alertness requirement is more. Nurse should advise to keep her away from alcohol consumption and she should take medications under supervision of doctor only. Nurse should advise to keep her away from hot environment and she should always keep her hydrated. Nurse should advise her to monitor back and chest pain, joint pain, edema in extremities. Nurse should advise her to give more attention to psychological indications after consumption of olanzapine. She should inform to doctor if she has dizziness, headache, insomania, nervousness, amnesia and bipolar disorder. She should inform to doctor if she has gastrointestinal symptoms like GI tract pain, raised salivation, increased appetite, dry mouth, nausea and vomiting. Nurse should inform doctor if she has dyspnea and cough. Nurse should advise her to take medicine with food once daily. She should take more care while standing up from sleep because this dug induces dizziness in the patient. She should be more careful is standing form lying position in initial period of her treatment. Amelia should consult to doctor, in case if she is not feeling improvement from this medicine. For better effect from this drug, she should consume it on regular basis. If she wishes to discontinue this drug she should consult doctor. Olanzapine may induce weight gain and raised levels of lipids and cholesterol. Hence, she should monitor these parameters on regular basis (Keltner and Steele, 2014).
Nurse should also consider her house, employment and income while providing outpatient caregiver facility. Nurse should involve Amelia in discharge plan, hence she would accept it easily. It is evident from the literature that, patient’s who were not incorporated in the discharge plan were resistant to aftercare. Nurse should make arrangements for aftercare in such a way that there would be improvement in the existing symptoms and also it would reduce chances of readmission to the psychiatric department. Nurse should incorporate and should give special emphasis for the improvement in the daily activities of Amelia post discharge. Nurse should also give attention to make suitable living arrangements for her. There may be possibility of no contribution from Amelia in discharge planning. In such scenario, nurse should follow evidence based practice and incorporate community based stakeholders in preparation of discharge plan. Nurse should consider social, cultural and environmental factors for Amelia while making arrangements of aftercare. It is evident from the literature that these factors significantly affect recovery of the patients. Nurse should incorporate family involvement, psychosocial rehabilitation, choice of correct medication and psycho education in her post discharge care. As all these factors would give speedy and sustainable recovery of Amelia, she would need adequate support in these areas (Damon et al., 2012).
References:
Alghzawi, H.M. Psychiatric Discharge Process. (2012). ISRN Psychiatry. 2012. https://dx.doi.org/10.5402/2012/638943.
Burchum, J., and Rosenthal, L. (2014). Lehne’s Pharmacology for Nursing Care. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Damon, L., Matthew, J., and Sheehan, J. (2012). Inpatient Psychiatric Nursing: Clinical Strategies & Practical Interventions. Springer Publishing Company.
Harvey, P. D., and Walker, E. (2013). Positive and Negative Symptoms in Psychosis: Description, Research, and Future Directions. Routledge.
Keltner, N.L., and Steele, D. (2014). Psychiatric Nursing. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Sellman, D., and Snelling, P. (2014). Becoming a Nurse: A Textbook for Professional Practice. Routledge.
Sikich, L. (2013). Diagnosis and evaluation of hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms in children and adolescents. Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 22(4), 655-73.
Stein-Parbury, J. (2013). Patient and Person: Interpersonal Skills in Nursing. Elsevier Health Sciences.
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