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Mental health nursing

Marianne Rigatti, a fourth year nursing student at Ryerson University, is pretty clear why she wants to specialize in mental health; she sees an opportunity to work in an underserviced area of the health care system that provides both a challenge and the space for professional growth.

DAVID CHILTON

[ 2005-10-05 ]

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Although Rigatti and fellow Ryerson student Archna Patel aren't unique in wanting to become mental health nurses, they are part of a fairly small club since most new nurses head off to jobs in obstetrics or medical-surgical units. Part of the reason is the health care system itself. New graduates just aren't hired right out of school to work in mental health care settings -- nor are they hired to work in trauma centres for that matter.

Specializing in mental health isn't popular, says Tricia Stiles, a mental health nurse herself for more than 30 years and a clinical nurse-specialist in geriatrics at the Community Care Access Centre in Guelph. Until recently Stiles was also president of the mental health nursing interest group within the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario.

"For some reason (mental health nurses') communication skills were such that they could connect with people," says Stiles. "That's not to say other nurses don't connect with people, but it's the interpersonal relationships (that matter). That's the hallmark of psychiatric mental health nursing. The ability to connect with people and recognize mental illness and recognize that (nurses) have a way of connecting with (patients) in a therapeutic relationship."

Nursing students in Ontario who want to specialize in mental health can't take three years of regular training and then specialize for their fourth year. That's the British model, Stiles says, and it doesn't work here. What the students in the province have to do instead is pick their courses to reflect their interests and then follow up with more education.

Would-be mental health nurses are strongly urged to write the Canadian Nurses Association's voluntary specialist exam after working in a psychiatric setting for two or three years. They then become a Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing (C) specialist.

Patel, who already has a degree from the University of Western Ontario in physiology and psychology, says mental health is overlooked and under managed, something she became aware of as a peer counsellor in high school and, later, at Western. Students blamed themselves for their mental health problems, she says, although they didn't do that when they had a physical ailment.

EARLY INTERVENTION

After graduation next year, Rigatti wants to take a master's degree in nursing, preferably at U of T. Following that, she intends to specialize in pediatric and adolescent mental health. Rigatti's reason for choosing the younger end of the spectrum stems from her experience working as a research assistant at Ryerson assessing the mental health of street youth.

"You see how they got to be on the street or in the shelter," she says, adding that the key is early intervention and help before the psychological issues confronting these young people are full blown.

Awareness, obviously, is all. That's the reason why Oct. 3 to 10 has been designated Mental Health Awareness Week and Oct. 10 proclaimed World Mental Health Day. For as Stiles, Patel and Rigatti all say, just because mental illness can't be seen, it's no less pervasive than other ailments. After all, over a lifetime, one in five Canadians will suffer problems with their mental health.

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