Physical Health Care for People with Severe Mental Illness: the Attitudes, Practices, and Training Needs of Nurses in Three Asian Countries

Daniel Bressington, Ashish Badnapurkar, Sachiko Inoue, Hin Yeung Ma, Wai Tong Chien, Deborah Nelson and Richard Gray
Additional contact information
Daniel Bressington: School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Ashish Badnapurkar: Health Services and Population Research Centre, Hamad Medical Corporation, PO Box 3050, Doha, Qatar
Sachiko Inoue: Department of Nursing, Okayama Prefectural University, 111 Kuboki, Soja, Okayama 719-1197, Japan
Hin Yeung Ma: School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Wai Tong Chien: School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Deborah Nelson: Mental Health Services, Hamad Medical Corporation, PO Box 3050, Doha, Qatar
Richard Gray: Department of Nursing and Midwifery, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: People with severe mental illness (SMI) have considerable unmet physical health needs and an increased risk of early mortality. This cross-sectional survey utilized the Physical Health Attitude Scale (PHASe) to examine the attitudes, practices, and training needs of nurses towards physical health care of people with SMI in three Asian countries (Hong Kong, Japan, Qatar). Cross-country differences were explored and linear regression was used to investigate if nurses’ attitudes and confidence were associated with their level of involvement in physical health care. A total of 481 questionnaires were returned. Hong Kong nurses were less involved in physical health care than those from Japan and Qatar. Nurses’ attitudes and confidence were significant predictors of their participation in managing physical health. Compared with western countries, more nurses in this study felt that mental illness was a barrier to improving physical health. Three-quarters reported that they needed additional training in promoting cardiometabolic health. The perceived need for additional training in physical health care was held by Mental Health Nurses (MHN) irrespective of their type of nursing registration and nationality. Nurse educators and service providers should reconsider the physical health care training requirements of nurses working in mental health settings in order to improve the physical health of people with SMI.

Keywords: nurse attitudes; physical health care; severe mental illness; nurse education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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