Specialistsjuksköterskors beskrivning av yrkesroll och omvårdnadshandlingar inom den psykiatriska heldygnsvården
Background: The goal of psychiatric nursing interventions is to enhance people?s ability tocope with feelings of futility, to get control of their lives and to learn coping strategies inorder to manage their mental illness and its consequences. Specialist nurses in psychiatric carecoordinate and direct nursing care based on evidence-based knowledge.Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of nursing acts specialist nurses usein the psychiatric inpatient unit and investigate how they perceive their professional role.Method: The design used was a descriptive qualitative interview study. Nine specialist nursesworking in psychiatric inpatient units were interviewed. Six of the participants were womenand three were men aged 28-53 years. Qualitative content analysis was used as the analyticalmethod.Results: The main results of the study were summarized in two broad areas: Nursingtreatments specialist nurses use in the psychiatric inpatient unit and Specialist nurse?sperception of their professional role. The following six categories were placed in the twoareas; planning nursing care, prevention and health promotion nursing, care of theenvironment significance, nursing in compulsory psychiatric care, broader knowledge andexperiences of colleagues ' view of specialist nurses' role. Five of the categories contain twoto three subcategories. The result shows that the difference between the basic nurses andspecialist nurses perceived as diffuse in practical nursing.Conclusion: The findings show that specialist nurses in this study work in accordance to thenational psychiatric association?s competence description. Specialist nurses are nursingexperts and with their broad knowledge about psychiatric nursing give them a holisticapproach to the psychiatric care.Keywords: Psychiatric nursing, Specialist nurse, Inpatient unit