title: Mental health nurses' views on therapeutic optimism.
abstract: Registered nurses (RN) coordinate acute mental health units on a 24-hour basis and it behoves researchers to actually ask these nurses what they think contributes to their ability to work with patients in optimistic ways. In this study, 40 RN working in acute mental health settings were asked a series of questions to explore positive aspects of nursing work, which includes therapeutic optimism. Three themes were identified: (i) different ways nurses foster therapeutic optimism; (ii) perceptions of how an optimistic environment is fostered, and (iii) improvement of ward culture. Findings show the pivotal role mental health nurses have in improving teamwork, good communication, sharing, and collaboration, in addition to preceptoring and supervision. Furthermore, effective clinical management is essential to therapeutic optimism and, in this research, is considered to be the aspect of acute mental health nursing most relevant to improving the ward culture.
authors.affiliation: Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Singapore. michelle_cleary@nuhs.edu.sg
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cleary
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Horsfall
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Hara-Aarons
authors.forename: Glenn E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Hunt
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010348:Patient Care Team; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data