Mental and Social Health Commons^™

Implementation Of A Mental Health Environmental Risk Assessment Tool, Alan Le

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background: Patient suicide is a serious safety issue, especially in mental health settings since suicides disproportionately affect psychiatric patients. Environmental hazards are a primary contributing factor in patient suicide cases.

Problem: Mental health staff may lack tools and training to perform proper environmental risk assessments, which is the case at a psychiatric crisis residential center in northern California that utilized no environmental risk assessment tool.

Methods: An environmental risk assessment tool was implemented at the site for four months to increase staff confidence, ability to identify hazards and decrease risk of patient suicides.

Interventions: The Suicide and …

Improving Therapeutic Communication In Mental Health Nursing: A Quality Improvement Project, Patricia A. Nill

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over 46 million adults in the United States (U.S.) live with a mental illness. Locally in Nevada, the psychiatrist to patient ratio is approximately 700:1, and patients are seen primarily in the inpatient setting, if seen at all, due to the wait average of 85 hours in the hospital emergency rooms for access into mental health hospitals or specialty units of a general hospital. Moreover, costs for mental health mood disorders alone are estimated at over seven million dollars annually. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) opined the need for change in healthcare to redesign practice and clinical communication with patients …

Identification And Mitigation Of Environmental Hazards In Psychiatric Patient Suicide Prevention: A Review, Alan Le

DNP Qualifying Manuscripts

Background: Environmental hazards are a factor in the bulk of inpatient suicide cases, which disproportionately impact psychiatric patients. Current measures to minimize suicide risk include process-oriented solutions and environmental safeguards such as breakaway structures.

Aims: To perform a review of the literature that identifies environmental suicide hazards and interventions implemented to abate hazards and reduce suicide risk.

Methods: Electronic databases were searched using relevant keywords. Inclusion criteria consisted of articles published 2009-2020 that identified environmental suicide hazards or examined efficacy of interventions implemented to abate hazards. The Johns Hopkins Research and Non-Research Evidence Appraisal Tools were used for critical appraisal. …