Nursing mental health evaluation of care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Nursing mental health evaluation of care - Essay Example When asking questions related to the mental health of the patient, it is always best to have â€Å"a nonjudgmental, matter- of-fact approach† (Molony, 2003). In taking their history, the mental health professional and the various professionals should listen carefully to the patient. Prying too deeply into their lives should be avoided and information should not be forced out of patient. Information extracted should focus on what the patient is comfortable discussing. Many patients are reluctant to discuss their condition and to reveal information about their mental health because of the stigma associated with mental illness. Society often labels mentally ill patients as dangerous. Society has a picture of the mentally ill patient, and this image is often distorted and exaggerated. Mentally ill patients are often shunned from the rest of society for reasons which are often misguided. Lack of knowledge and enlightenment about mental illness on the part of the patient may also be attributed to limited information sharing on the part of the patient. Patients are mostly not aware that what they are feeling is attributable to some form of mental illness. In these instances, they do not exactly know which information indicative of mental illness they should share with their caregiver. For them, these are just feelings and emotions. To the enlightened medical personnel, these may be symptoms of an illness. In caring for the mentally ill patient, the medical personnel were able to ensure that history taking was taken in a non-judgmental, comfortable, and non-prying manner. Through a comfortable and subtle interview, the patient was able to open up about the events leading up to her suicide attempt. She was able to reveal information about her emotional state and other psychological conditions that reveal mental illness. As regards age factor, a study comparing older and younger mental health patients revealed that older patients are less