Patient‐centred care in acute psychiatric admission units: reality or rhetoric?

It has been suggested that patient‐centred care be adopted as the primary method of mental health service delivery. This approach has been widely described in the literature and various frameworks for its delivery have been developed; however, many lack evaluation at present. The primary aim of this study was to gain an understanding of psychiatric nursing practice with people who self‐harm using a qualitative descriptive approach. One of its objectives was to explore psychiatric nurses' approach and philosophical underpinnings to care. A sample of eight psychiatric nurses from two acute psychiatric admission units in Ireland was gained through convenience sampling. Data were collected through in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and analysed using a combination of content and theme analysis. Barker's Tidal Model was being utilized as the basis of nursing practice in both units. This paper presents one of the themes that emerged from the findings on the concept of patient‐centred care, and how this translated in the use of the Tidal Model.