This paper describes a study which aimed to explore the present and ideal role of the nurse teacher in the clinical area from the perspective of: nurse teachers; ward sisters/charge nurses; staff nurses and students nurses undertaking the 'traditional' and Project 2000 programmes of training. The study adopted a qualitative design. Findings from this study demonstrate that the clinical role of the nurse teacher lacks clarity, however, clear criteria emerged as to how trained nurses and student nurses perceived the ideal role. Nurse teachers' role in assuring the quality of the clinical learning environment emerged as a major area of criticism. It was suggested that, if nurse teachers adopted a clinical role that was primarily concerned with supporting clinically based nurses in their teaching role, this served to assure the quality of students' clinical learning experience. In conclusion, it is suggested that for nurse teachers to meet the needs of trained nurses and student nurses in the clinical area, the role must be diverse and flexible. Attempts to prescribe a unimodel approach to deliver the service should be avoided. Rather, the role must be negotiated between teachers, clinical nurses and students, and constructed in a way that best meets the needs of all parties concerned.

The discourse community of British psychiatric and mental health nursing is a contested realm. The 'Big Stories' of policy and planning of services are clearly articulated in disputes in journals, but the 'Little Stories' of nurses' work and patients' or users' experiences may be ignored or under-valued. This paper illustrates how the Big Story of a central theme in current policy--empowerment--is articulated in the realm of research funding and design, and how it is articulated by practitioners. The paper focuses attention on the responsibilities faced by researchers, in relating the Little Stories of practice and the Big Story of policy. It reports early and tentative findings from a study of community psychiatric nurses' empowerment of people with enduring mental disorders. The paper suggests ways in which strategies for analysis of qualitative data from interviews with CPNs may be informed by ideas drawn from the field of discourse analysis; reflexively examining how researchers' discourses relate to those of policy makers and mental health nursing practitioners. This paper is based on a presentation at the Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research Conference, Napier University, Edinburgh, 17 September 1997.

The findings of this study provide an explanation of how community psychiatric nurses make community psychiatric nursing work. The work of community psychiatric nursing can be usefully compared to that involved in making a theatre production. In the theatre there is a play with a plot which is conveyed through the parts played by characters. In the face of production limitations (size of theatre, costs and time constraints, for example) and the demands of sponsors, audience, theatre critics and others in the Company, the characters make use of the stage props and get the show on the road. The community psychiatric nurses can be likened to the characters in a play, whose title is 'the provision of a community psychiatric nursing service'; the plot being the provision of individualized care. Similar to the production limitations in the theatre, the community psychiatric nurses have limited care options and resources and are faced with the varied demands of patients, carers and situations, other specialists and the bureaucracy. Yet the nurses have to produce the best match of needs to resources. Maintaining a theatrical analogy, the nurses have to use what props they have on the stage, not to 'get the show on the road', but to make the community psychiatric nursing service work. Unlike a theatrical production, however, community psychiatric nurses do not appear to have an overall director controlling the work; neither are there guidelines which limit or define practice. This results in individual community psychiatric nurses establishing their own modus operandi and defining their own work practices. Two major themes pervade this account of the work of community psychiatric nurses.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

This paper outlines a technique, the repertory grid technique, which offers the opportunity for psychiatric nurses to document information gained in an interview setting. The method, which consists of structured and systematic questioning, allows exploration of individual's systems of meanings. Data collection is separated from inference, hence the criticism that the nursing data is impressionistic and opinionated is avoided. The controlled conversational format of the technique provides an enhanced awareness of receiving information and interpreting it, and the primary data is clearly presented and available for discussion about conclusions. These data can be subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis and the method is to be recommended as a research technique which could be of value to psychiatric nurses at the clinical level.

This paper reports findings from a study that explored trained nurses' and student nurses' perceptions of the nurse teachers' ideal role in the clinical area. Findings demonstrate a dichotomy of opinion regarding the ideal role of the nurse teacher in the clinical area that relates to the nursing specialties in which trained nurses work. Trained nurses working in general nursing areas favoured a product-focused, inspectorate supervisory role for nurse teachers. Conversely, trained nurses working in mental health and learning difficulties areas favoured a supportive, supervisory role for the nurse teacher that emphasized the learning process and encouraged reflection. The consequence of the different models used for student nurses' experience of supervision are discussed and the issue of nurse teachers' clinical credibility is explored. It is suggested that trained nurses, nurse teachers and student nurses should be involved in negotiating and constructing the role that nurse teachers play in the clinical area.