Author

Shannon Jones

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Committee Chair

Ashley Isaac-Dockery

Abstract

Psychiatric and mental health nurses face unique problems related to the specifics of the role including low morale and burnout. These problems stem from many factors including insufficient staffing, lack of support from management, and patient behaviors such as aggression or noncompliance which lead to poor patient outcomes. The purpose of this study was to determine what effect adoption of Dr. Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring has on nurse perception of the care environment on an inpatient psychiatric unit in a rural community hospital as measured by a modified version of the Combined Assessment of Psychiatric Environments (CAPE) instrument. A review of the literature revealed gaps in data related to this care area and particularly use of theory in psychiatric and mental health nursing. This study used a quantitative pre-test/post-test design using one group of participants: psychiatric nurses on the inpatient psychiatric unit in a rural community hospital. Results indicate adoption of Dr. Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring on an inpatient psychiatric unit improve nurse perception of the care environment as measured by a modified version of the staff version of the CAPE instrument in the category of effectiveness.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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