Exploring the past: mental health nursing in Greece

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the evolution of psychiatric nursing from the delayed organization of an asylum mental health system in Greece to the present. The care and custody of mental health patients which was in the hands of police at the first asylum passed to the hands of uneducated staff and gradually to the hands of qualified nurses. Severe overcrowding along with limited resources and low staff numbers resulted in the poor quality of living conditions. In this context, psychiatric nursing took its first steps in Greece, without realizing the inherent conflict in its dual role, that of care and social control. Counter to the handed-down cliché about psychiatric hospitals, nurses frequently put great effort into improving the living conditions of patients. However, the regulations of the institutions emphasizing the custodial role of nursing together with other structural factors of the psychiatric system impeded nurses' attempts to improve institutional care considerably. Nowadays, psychiatric hospitals are shrinking at a rapid pace, leaving behind them--as heritage for the psychiatric nurses who try to define their new role in community--the pioneers of psychiatric nursing's courage, ethos and respect for the psychiatric client.

Assessment of Factors That Influence Nurses’ Attitudes towards Mental Illness

“…Despite the progress in social psychiatry and the adoption of mechanisms that raise awareness in the public, mentally ill patients are continuing to be victims of discrimination [1]. Up until the recent past in the beginning of the 19th century psychiatric patients were treated in the same way as drug addicts and prostitutes [2] [3]. Despite the hopeful movement of psychiatric rehabilitation and the deinstutalization of the mentally ill those patients are continuing to be victims of social discrimination [4].…”

Containment and therapeutic relationships in acute psychiatric care spaces: the symbolic dimensions of doors

“…Even when the door locking was considered as a necessary part of the work, discomfort with a time-consuming task blurring their professional role and hindering the building of therapeutic alliances was prominent and similar to that of other research [ 21 ]. Structural and cultural characteristics of the psychiatric hospitals of the present study [ 61 ], low staff levels and resources due to the Greek economic crisis of the last decade [ 42 ], previous traumatizing experiences of involuntary hospitalization [ 62 , 63 ] may have also impacted the attempts of mental health nurses in the present study who strived to find space for therapeutic engagement.…”

Locked versus open ward environments and restrictive measures in acute psychiatry in Greece: Nursing students' attitudes and experiences

“…Lack of understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of door locking and containment practices on the acute care environment and the recovery process may limit future nurses' ability to interact in a meaningful and safe way with PWMHPs and their families 15,17 . In contrast, acknowledgment of the advantages and disadvantages of psychiatric practices may help future psychiatric nurses resist nonrepresentative descriptions of their professional group's attitudes in light of abundant evidence on attitudinal differences among qualified and nonqualified staff (e.g., Doedens et al 29 ) and the alarming staff shortages and high levels of involuntary admissions which front‐line nurses in Athens have to deal with in public psychiatric hospitals with a history of courageous service provision at times of adversity 24,63 . Finally, it may cultivate future nurses' personal and professional self‐awareness necessary to build a strong professional identity as advocates of PWMHPs' recovery and empowerment.…”