Effectiveness of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses: Can We Save the Core of the Profession in an Economically Constrained World?

Mental and behavioral disorders are common, affecting more than 25% of all people at some time during their lives. Mental disorders and their burden on society have increased dramatically. This scenario can be an opportunity for psychiatric/mental health (P/MH) nurses. Some literature shows gratifying experiences of care delivered by P/MH nurses, but that can also be a threat if, in a world with an economic dominance such as ours, we are not able to clarify our identity and effectiveness. One implication of this is that we need to identify the contribution of nursing to patient outcomes through nurses' independent, dependent, and interdependent roles. The authors stressed the importance of improving our accountability and fighting against invisibility to policy makers to prioritize the nurse–client relationship and identify our effectiveness. Based on some literature, the authors argue that clinical nurse specialists are in a better position than nurse practitioners to produce nursing-sensitive outcomes.