Investigation and Analysis of Mental State and Coping Style of Psychiatric Nurses in Public Health Emergencies

Abstract

Objectives: In this study, we evaluated the evaluate the psychological loads of psychiatric nurses and analyzed the influencing factors of these loads in nurse-patient communication. Methods: We used a convenience sampling method to select 400 psychiatric nurses from 5 tertiary psychiatric hospitals in Hebei, Jiangsu and Guangdong between April 5, 2020 and March 5, 2022 to participate. All participants were interviewed using a self-developed psychiatric nurse-patient communication event questionnaire and a 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12). Results: The nurses’ mean GHQ-12 score for psychiatric nurse-patient communication was 5.12±3.89 points, and generally, the psychological load was at a moderately high level. Among them, 196 (49.00%) had a high psychological load. The top 5 types of violence from patients or families towards the psychiatric nurses in the past month were injuries, verbal abuse, difficulties, work obstruction, and threatening intimidation. The most frequent factors in nurse-patient communication stress events were being worried about errors and accidents at work, being worried about not facing patient’s emotional problems properly, and concern that they lacked communication skills about specific psychiatric symptoms. A multiple linear regression analysis showed that the important predictors of a high psychological load in psychiatric nurses included being male, having greater education, having worked a high number of years, having a high nurse characteristic factor load score, having a high environmental and social support factor load score, and experiencing workplace violence. Conclusion: The psychological load of psychiatric nurses is generally at a moderately high level and is directly related to gender, the number of working years, whether nurses have received professional systematic training, the frequency of workplace violence factors, nurses’ characteristics, and environmental and social support scores. Accordingly, we should take note of these areas and improve them.