S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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Nurses also display ingenuity in relieving their colleagues from feeling stressed when delivering mental healthcare. Remote nurses will alter shifts to accommodate a nurse’s feelings of vulnerability to mental health presentations, [If] we know that, so we try to avoid putting them in the situation. Even though there is only two staff, we can swap shifts. [T2, p. 5] [Resourcefulness] All remote nurse participants reported that working in remote locations was stressful. Providing mental healthcare increased their levels of stress. The fundamental reason for this stress emanated from believing mental health nursing is a specialty and different from general nursing. I think it is a separate specialty, similar but separate specialty, because it is entirely different. [T2, p. 8] [When a mental health patient is] presenting psychotically or suicidally, they [remote nurses] see that it’s a distinct discipline, which they’re not trained in. [T7, p. 13] They [remote nurses] see it [mental healthcare] as something different [from general nursing]. [T5, p. 14] Arising out of this misconception, remote nurses believe they require specialised mental health skills and knowledge, which they believe they do not possess. This results in a lack of confidence and low self-assessed levels of competency in caring for mental health patients, as discussed in this Chapter 3. I think you have to have knowledge, a fair bit of knowledge of how to deal with them [mental health patients]. [T4, p. 8] Concerning remote nurses, a mental health nurse practitioner reported: