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How Patients And Nurses Experience The Acute Care Psychiatric Environment, Mona Shattell, Melanie Andes, Sandra Thomas

Mona Shattell

The concept of the therapeutic milieu was developed when patients’ hospitalizations were long, medications were few, and one-to-one nurse-patient interactions were the norm. However, it is not clear how the notion of “therapeutic milieu” is experienced in American acute psychiatric environments today. This phenomenological study explored the experience of patients and nurses in an acute care psychiatric unit in the United States (US), by asking them, “What stands out to you about this psychiatric hospital environment?” Three figural themes emerged, contextualized by time, which was a source of stress to both groups: for patients there was boredom, and for nurses, …