title: Strategies for maintaining optimal wellness in the chronic mentally ill.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Ways the chronic mentally ill avoid loss of control and the importance of both the therapeutic environment and the nurse-patient relationship in helping them do this.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine the strategies people with chronic mental illness use to prevent loss of control and maintain health, and ways nurses can help with this process.
  
  
  METHODS
  Findings from a previously published study of seven chronically mentally ill clients in a rural day-treatment center.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Four properties related to the core variable of "preventing loss of control" are relationships, feelings, good attitude, and functional activity. These properties must be examined within the context of the therapeutic environment as well as the nurse-patient relationship.
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, USA.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yurkovich
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Smyer
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002908:Chronic Disease; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000379:methods*