Citation

Teraoka T. J. Jpn. Acad. Psychiatric Mental Health Nurs. 2010; 19(1): 1-11.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Japan Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

To understand the reactions and the related processes of nurses who encountered a patient's suicide in psychiatric hospitals, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 nurses. The reactions of the nurses were categorized into 14 reactions related to emotion and thought, including "mental shock", "emotional paralysis", "self-accusation", and "feeling of isolation", and four reactions related to the body, including "insomnia". Furthermore, while reactions such as "finding meaning in suicide", "verbalizing feelings", and "reconsidering the nature of nursing" led to behaviors such as "working on efforts to prevent suicide", there were 12 reactions related to behaviors such as "leaving the psychiatric ward/hospital" and "avoiding related thoughts". Moreover, the processes the subjects underwent were broadly classified into: processes presenting aspects in which the mental shock was relieved, such as (1) recovering while receiving support, (2) waiting until their feelings were sorted over time, (4) channeling feelings of self-accusation and isolation into working on efforts to prevent suicide, (6) relearning the nature of mental nursing and working to prevent suicide, and (7) finding meaning in the patient's suicide; and processes presenting aspects in which the mental shock continued and the subject tended to avoid confronting the issue, such as (3) convincing oneself that the cause of the suicide was not related to oneself while remaining subconsciously terrified of suicide and (5) long-lasting mental shock and self-accusation.

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