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Psychiatric treatment and research unit for adolescent intensive care: the first adolescent forensic psychiatric service in Finland
Author(s) -
KAHILA K.,
KILKKU N.,
KALTIALAHEINO R.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1365-2850
pISSN - 1351-0126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2003.00716.x
Subject(s) - unit (ring theory) , psychiatry , legislation , economic shortage , child and adolescent psychiatry , forensic psychiatry , service (business) , medicine , psychiatric assessment , action plan , adolescent psychiatry , psychology , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics education , economy , government (linguistics) , political science , law , economics , biology
Finland does not have a history of providing forensic adolescent psychiatric units although the need for this kind of service has been established. According to legislation patients who are minors have to be treated separately from adults, however, this has not been possible in practice. Also, adolescent psychiatric wards have not always been able to admit the most severely ill patients, those with impulsive and aggressive behaviours, because of lack of staff resources, problems associated with protecting other vulnerable patients and a shortage of secure environments. A previous report demonstrated the significant increase in adolescent's involuntary treatment within adult psychiatric wards. Data from this report were acknowledged as an important starting point in the planning process for the psychiatric treatment and research unit for adolescent intensive care. This paper describes the background, development process, plan of action, tailor‐made education programme and supporting evidence for the first Finnish adolescent forensic service opened in April 2003 in the Department of Psychiatry, Tampere University Hospital. The tool used for planning the unit's activities and staff education programme was the Balanced Score Card approach, the structure and development of which is also outlined within the paper.