Improvements in the ward atmosphere in adult psychiatry can have a positive effect on nursing staff. This is shown in a new dissertation from Malmö University in Sweden.

Psychiatry has undergone major changes in the last couple of decades. Some have led to improvements in care, while others have had negative impacts in the form of staffing shortages, poor work environments, and deficiencies in caring for patients.

Hanna Tuvesson, a nurse and researcher at Malmö University, worked in adult psychiatry before she started pursuing research. On Friday she will publicly defend her dissertation titled Psychiatric nursing staff and the workplace: Perceptions of the ward atmosphere, psychosocial work environment, and stress. In her dissertation, Tuvesson examines the perceptions of nursing staff regarding the work environment in closed psychiatric care. She also looks closely at the relationship between the ward atmsophere and the work environment.

"The primary focus for closed psychiatric care is the patients and providing them with good care. But psychiatry is also a workplace for many people, which makes it important to examine working conditions there," says Tuvesson.

Using six different questionnaires, she has studied the ward atmosphere and the work environment at twelve closed general psychiatric wards.

"One important finding in my studies is that the ward atmosphere is an important aspect of how the nursing staff experience their work environment. For example, if patients have too few activities, the risk of stress increases among the staff," says Tuvesson.

In the same way, the risk of increased stress of conscience increases, not being able to do what you feel is right when levels of anger and aggressive behavior are high. In her dissertation she shows that the ward atmsophere is intimately related to the work environment.

"An important lesson we can learn from this is that improvements in the ward atmsophere of patients can have a positive impact on the work environment of the staff, something that should be borne in mind when we make changes in care," says Tuvesson.

Sources: Expertanswer, AlphaGalileo Foundation.