Purpose: Emotional instability and self-harm pose major problems for society and health care. There are effective interventions in outpatient care, but when patients need inpatient care, nurses often struggle meeting their patient’s needs. Brief admission (BA) is a newly implemented crisis intervention and novel form of inpatient care. The aim of this study is to describe nurses’ experiences working with BA related to patients with emotional instability and self-harm.Methods: Eight nurses were interviewed according to a semi-structured interview guide. The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis.Results: Four main categories emerged regarding nurses’ experiences with BA: provides security and continuity, fosters caring relationships, shifts focus towards patient’s health and empowers the patient. The nurse’s role shifted from “handling problems” to establishing caring relationships with a focus on the person’s health and possibilities for recovering instead of psychiatric symptoms.Conclusions: Previous studies on patients’ perspective of BA describe positive experiences such as increased autonomy and participation in the healthcare process. This study supports those findings, albeit from the perspective of nurses. Our findings suggest that BA may reduce work-related stress experienced by nurses while caring for persons with emotional instability and self-harm. BA may also support nurses in their ability to provide more meaningful and constructive psychiatric inpatient care.

Background Patients with schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses have a poor prognostic outlook and rates of recovery. Inpatient care is common, but the decision to initiate such care is not solely up to the patient but also influenced by the healthcare providers. Recent ideas about shared decision-making however challenges this idea. Patient-Controlled Admissions (PCA) refers to a care model where a patient signs a contract that allows the decision for admission into inpatient care to be transferred onto the patient. Methods In Region Stockholm’s public healthcare PCA was introduced to patients with schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses deemed to have the greatest care needs. Outcomes of a 12-month naturalistic within-group follow-up was analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results In total, 56 patients fulfilled the study’s inclusion criteria, with between 20 to 42 patients having complete data and being able to analyze statistically, depending on the variable. Number of admissions, inpatient days, number of involuntary admissions, and involuntary admission days decreased, but only significantly so for inpatient days, p < .01 (a mean reduction of 11.5 days). Neither self-rated well-being, as assessed using the EQ5D-3L, or a clinician-administered rating of overall health status, the Clinical Global Impression Scale, demonstrated a significant change. Conclusions The use of PCA points towards a trend in decreased hospitalization for patients with schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses, although this needs to be explored further in larger samples and over a longer follow-up.