Acute mental health nurses: comprehensive practitioners or specialist therapists?

Accessible summary Psychosocial interventions (PSI) is an approach for helping people with mental health problems in addition to medication. It is a way for nurses to work closely with patients to help them with their problems. Nurses (trainees) who were taught PSI on two modules were interviewed to find out the aids and barriers to using the PSI when they were working with patients on acute (admissions) wards. Most of the trainees found it difficult to use these new skills because of the pressure of time on acute wards. This article makes recommendations for more effective implementations of PSI in acute wards in the future.