The nursing process in crisis‐oriented psychiatric home care

Crisis‐oriented psychiatric home care is a recent development in the Dutch mental health care system. Because of the difference between psychiatric care in the home and in the hospital, an action research project was initiated. This project was directed at the nursing process and the nurses' role and skills in psychiatric home care. The main goal of the project was to describe and to standardize nursing diagnoses and interventions used in crisis‐oriented and long‐term psychiatric home care. The development of supporting methods of assessment and intervention were also important aspects of this project. In this article a crisis‐oriented psychiatric home care programme and the first developmental research activities within this programme are described. To support the nursing process, the development of a nursing record and an assessment‐format, based on Gordon's Functional Health Patterns (FHP), took place. By means of content analysis of 61 nursing records, the most frequently stated nursing diagnoses, based upon the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) taxonomy, were identified. The psychiatric diagnostic categories of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM‐IV) were also collected. The most common categories found were those of mood disorders and schizophrenia or psychotic disorders. Seventy‐five per cent of the nursing diagnoses showed up within four FHP: role‐relationship, coping‐stress tolerance, self‐perception/self‐concept and activity‐exercise. The nursing diagnosis of ‘ineffective individual coping’ was stated most frequently. This is not surprising because of the similarities in the definitions of this nursing diagnosis and the concept of ‘crisis’ to which the psychiatric home care programme is oriented. Further research activities will be focused on standardization of nursing diagnosis and the interventions that nurses undertake in this type of care.