support Archives - Off the Charts

How to Support the Nurse in Your Life, May 2022

Photo by Dương Nhân from Pexels

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post directed towards friends and family members of nurses, entitled “How to Support the Nurse in Your Life.” While the ideas in that post still hold up today, so much in nursing has changed, the COVID pandemic being the obvious main factor. With nurses in more need of support than ever, I find it important to revisit this idea of helping friends and families supporting the nurses in their lives at this unique point in time.

1. Listen to what the nurse is actually distressed about in the moment, and stay with them there.

In normal, non-pandemic times, nurses already have many people, situations, and issues to tend to in addition to the actual patient. There are so many unique aspects of the nurse role that challenge us, all of them rolled into a tangled ball in the course of a 12-hour shift. If we are distressed about one particular aspect, please stay with us in your focus on the actual issue at hand so we have time and space to unpack it without all the other competing stressors vying for all our attention.

For example, we might be upset one […]

Hui-wen Sato, MSN, MPH, RN, CCRN2022-05-02T09:19:45-04:00May 2nd, 2022|Nursing|2 Comments

With Severe Mental Illness, A Vicious Circle of Stigma and Lack of Support

Although psychiatric facilities no longer treat patients the way movies like The Snake Pit and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest depicted, society’s treatment of people with mental illness is still lacking.

As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I provide care for patients coping with the challenges of mental illness. Symptoms are often painful, life altering, and frightening. Sadly, patients experience additional suffering from the guilt, shame, and social isolation that comes with having a psychiatric disorder. That’s because mental illness continues to carry a stigma that inhibits people from seeking help and limits the amount of services available for those who do seek it.

Had they received the support they needed….

In this month’s Viewpoint in AJN, Juliet Hegdal, a family nurse practitioner, discusses the impact severe mental illness has on patients and their family members. The author shares what it was like being raised by a mother with schizophrenia and the lack of resources available to her and her family. She posits that her mother and society would have been better off had she received the support she needed. […]

Guest Author2021-02-23T13:48:16-05:00February 23rd, 2021|mental illness|0 Comments

Staying Away, Reaching Out: Offering Parents Support During the Pandemic

The ‘circuit breaker.’

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

I brace myself as I look over the names printed on my patient list. Our developmental pediatric unit has started an initiative to call our more vulnerable families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chan J. DOB: 12/10/2001. As I scan the electronic notes, I learn that mum is the main caregiver of not one but two boys with autism spectrum disorder who require a high level of support. They both usually attend special school, but the school is currently closed because of social distancing measures. We are in lockdown, or ‘circuit breaker’ as we call it in Singapore, and both children have been at home for the past three weeks. My heart sinks in anticipation as I punch in the numbers.

“Hello,” a voice hesitates at the other end.

“Good morning, Mrs. Chan,” I say, putting on a cheery tone. “My name is Jia Yi and I am a nurse from the child development unit. We are checking in with our families and I wonder if you have some time to speak with me?”

“What about?” This mother sounds tired.

“Oh, just checking in on how you are getting on and whether there is anything we can do to help.”

‘”It’s hard,” she says. I […]