Solution focused nursing: A fitting model for mental health nurses working in a public health paradigm
Margaret McAllister
School of Health and Sport Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore QLD
PP: 149 - 157
Abstract
The current national health agenda is advocating an extension of public health principles across all levels of the health sector. Since mental health nurses have long been proponents of public health and health promoting behaviours, an opportunity exists for this specialty of nursing to extend their influence and contribution within health. Solution Focused Nursing (SFN), a model that emerged from mental health practice, offers a framework to assist mental health nurses and leaders to more clearly practise public health principles within nursing and articulate that practice - for it is in the articulation of practice that nurses and nursing is made visible and valued. This paper aims to expand on and reiterate the model known as Solution Focused Nursing, showing how it connects to public health principles and develops the mental health nurse's role - particularly in those clinical areas that require more than medical management and illness stabilization.
Keywords
Nursing, professional development, public health, solution, solution focused nursing
Article Text
Mental health nursing within Australia is undergoing an exciting period of re-visioning and renewal. As a postgraduate mental health coordinator at University, I am fielding many more inquiries from clinical nurses and undergraduate students interested in enrolling in postgraduate mental health nursing study than I have in over 10 years. Apart from the workforce shortage reaching crisis point, and various governments finally realizing that incentives are needed to entice nurses to gain specialty knowledge and skills in mental health, I put the renewed interest down mainly to a perception of new career opportunities. Many have heard about the Mental Health Nurse Incentive Program introduced by the Federal Government via Medicare, and the emergence of roles such as the Consultation Liaison (CL) Nurse and Nurse Practitioners (Sharrock et al. 2008). All of these offer an opportunity for an expanded clinical role for nurses, as well as the promise of new challenges, responsibility, respect and autonomy.
Another major development within Australia is of course the change of Government. The Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has a declared interest in seeing public health principles and practices enacted within and across health in Australia (DoHA 2008). This provides another opportunity for nurses and nursing to extend their influence and contribution within health. I argue that mental health nursing has long been a proponent of public health and health promoting behaviours, and indeed there are several models for nursing that articulate and enshrine these principles, placing nurses in a key position of influence (Barker 2001; McAllister 2007; Peplau 1992).
This paper aims to expand on and reiterate the model known as Solution Focused Nursing (SFN) as it can be applied to the mental health nurse's role - particularly in those clinical areas that require more than medical management and illness stabilization. I argue that SFN offers nurses a framework from which they can confidently practise nursing and articulate that practice - for it is in the articulation of practice that nurses and nursing is made visible and valued.
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