S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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2005) and that, ‘[N]egative experiences revealed … nurses felt that people with mental health problems did not appreciate their care and were likely to be uncooperative and resistive (sic), reacting in a manner that caused management problems’ (Reed & Fitzgerald, 2005). These negative themes are mirrored in comments reported by Slaven and Kisely (2002) that nurses admitted professional difficulties in dealing with DSH behaviour ‘[w]hat they have done goes against our values … [T]hese people do it to themselves so it really goes against what we believe in’ (2002). Jelinek et al. (2011) did not report findings against this theme. 3.2.6.1.4 Resources and support The gist of the findings of Clark et al. (2005) is that the majority of nurses felt they did not have adequate support and resources to care for mental health clients. Many nurses (42.3%) felt they could not easily find someone to help them with difficulties, 43.6% felt they could not easily find someone to assist in the most appropriate way to provide care and only 22.1% reported receiving adequate support from other agencies. On this topic Reed and Fitzgerald (2005) found a number of concerns related to environmental issues such as buildings and fittings not designed to care for such a population, and insufficient levels of workplace security and support such as ‘being unable to access appropriate help when needed’ (Reed & Fitzgerald, 2005), particularly after hours. Nurses also reported concerns about high client/staff ratios and a lack of available psychiatric beds on referral. Greater than three-quarters (76.9%) of the nurses in the study by Slaven and Kisely (2002) reported that they had received little information from GPs about DSH clients’ levels of risk, clinical management or follow-up on admission to hospital. The lack of resources and support for rural nurses was a strong theme highlighted in interviews in the study by

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