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. […]

2021-02-23T13:48:16-05:00February 23rd, 2021|mental illness|0 Comments
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COVID-19 Vaccines Explained

As we in the U.S. struggle to set up systems for the rapid administration of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations, what do nurses need to know about these vaccines?

Two vaccines have received emergency use authorization (EUA) in the U.S.—one manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech, the other by Moderna. (A third, manufactured by AstraZeneca, is likely to receive EUA by April.) New, more efficient vaccine technologies along with a huge financial investment by the U.S. government have produced these products in a much shorter time frame than has been typical for other vaccines.

Currently available vaccines.

The two vaccines that are available now are messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines. This type of vaccine has been developed and studied for decades for possible use in preventing influenza, Zika, and other infectious diseases. Human mRNA is a strand of genetic material used for cell building and maintenance. For SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, mRNA based on part of the SARS-CoV-2 genome is synthesized and standardized in a lab.

When administered in a vaccine, this mRNA delivers to our cells the instructions  to replicate a “spike protein” found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (Important to know and tell patients: The mRNA never enters the nuclei of our cells, and can’t be incorporated into our own DNA.) After a cell follows these instructions and “posts” the spike protein replica on its surface, the immune system recognizes it as foreign […]

2021-01-19T11:08:24-05:00January 19th, 2021|infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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A COVID-Era Telehealth Appointment Drives Home the Fragility and Strength of the Therapeutic Relationship

The Reflections essay in this month’s AJN is by LaRae Huyck, a psychiatric mental health NP. In this one-page story with a dramatic COVID-era twist, she explores her years accompanying a young counseling patient from suicidal depression during adolescence to joyful engagement with life as she heads out into the world on her own. Writes Huyck:

The time I spent with her seems so short, but in actuality it made up nearly a fourth of her life. We had traveled though the awkward adolescent years, the landmine of her parents’ divorce, the loss of a beloved grandmother, and a failed relationship that ended her dreams of a prom date.”

The healing power of a therapeutic relationship.

“The Importance of Time” adroitly summarizes this journey, revealing the author’s compassion for this young woman and her hopes for her as well. It’s a story of healing and growth that reveals the good that therapeutic relationships coupled with medication can do for some patients. […]

2021-01-11T13:47:05-05:00January 11th, 2021|mental illness, narratives, Nursing, Patients|0 Comments
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Levels of Weariness Among Nurses

I imagine that nurses throughout the world are constantly being asked “How are things at work these days?”—with the implied question being “How are you holding up with your work situation?” While my colleagues and I in our pediatric hospital have not seen an overwhelming surge of COVID+ patients come through our doors, we have certainly seen some, with an uptick in our COVID+ census as the numbers throughout the country have increased.

When I pause at this point in the conversation, the usual response I get is, “Oh, that’s so good to hear. You’re lucky.” And I agree and reflect this back to whoever I’m speaking with. My heart hurts for my fellow nurses in other parts of the nation who have been utterly overwhelmed by COVID and its cruelty. I recognize that I am indescribably lucky.

At the same time, though it’s hard to articulate why, even nurses who haven’t been hit by the surges seen in other hospitals bear layers of deep weariness by this point in the pandemic. […]

2021-01-21T11:28:06-05:00December 16th, 2020|career, COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing|1 Comment
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An Intimate Glimpse of Community Health Nursing During the Pandemic  

Photo courtesy of Monica M. Finifrock.

We hear a lot about frontline nurses and the trauma they’ve endured throughout the year fighting the world’s deadliest pandemic in 100 years. Their stories are harrowing and heroic and shine a much deserved spotlight on the importance of the profession. And yet COVID-19 has touched not only those working in ICUs and EDs—but in every area of health care. Our December In the Community article, “Keeping Calm in the Buffer Zone,” is just one example of a nurse touched by COVID-19 in her daily work.

Community health as a ‘buffer zone.’

When the article opens, author Monica M. Finifrock is on her way to work at a community health clinic in Seattle. It’s April and the pandemic is beginning to take a toll.

I don’t consider myself on the front lines of the pandemic . . . I’m not watching patients take their last gasps of air or making hard decisions about who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t. I’m a community health nurse, and my role during the COVID-19 pandemic is to do exactly what I always strive to do—serve the community.

Calling her clinic a “buffer zone,” Finifrock argues that community health clinics are more […]

2020-12-10T08:42:36-05:00December 10th, 2020|COVID-19, narratives, nursing stories, Public health|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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