This is a report of a descriptive survey of psychiatric nursing in four British hospitals. The aim of the study was to determine the outstanding problems associated with providing nursing care in mental hospitals and their effect on the quality of nursing care.
All grades of nursing personnel were included in the survey, and attention was given to their functions, educational preparation, relationships with patients and co-workers, and their outstanding discontents. The part the hospital environment and equipment played in hampering or facilitating patient care was examined. The four British hospitals in the study differed in tradition, size, location (urban and rural), open and locked-door policy, and paying and nonpaying patient clientele.
Four methods of collecting data were used in the following sequence: (1) Nursing staff completed a questionnaire on personal information and opinions. (2) Students kept written diaries for 7 consecutive days. (3) The investigator did participant observation