The Relation Between the Nurses’ Difficulties About Care for People with Mental Disorder in General Wards and Their Negative Feeling About Hospitalization of the People

The aim of this study was to explore the relations between nurses’ difficulties in caring for persons living with mental disorders and negative feeling about hospitalization of these persons in general wards. Out of 150 nurses working in a local general hospital in Japan, 86 were eligible for this study. Exploratory factor analysis of the question items for symptoms and conditions with which the nurses had difficulty revealed two principal factors: symptoms like psychosis and neurosis. These factors were then compared in terms of the attitudes that nurses had toward hospitalizing those persons with mental disorders. The greater the negative attitudes toward hospitalizing the persons with mental disorders, the greater the difficulty in caring for them. It is thought that symptoms like psychosis were considered to be caused by schizophrenia, epilepsy, and dementia, and symptoms like neurosis were caused by mood disorder, personality disorder and depression. These principal factors seemed to be with two different difficulties. One is about dealing with their symptoms, another is to distinguish them. Non-psychiatric nurses seemed to be working without confidence in caring for those with mental health disorders. We thought the workloads were increased by symptoms like psychosis and mental burdens on nurses as emotional labors were increased by symptoms like neurosis. Therefore, it is necessary for nurses working in general wards to improve the consultation support system about mental disorders.