Recognising and responding to signs of clinical deterioration in patients with mental illness.

Aim

To upskill nurses to perform a range of nursing procedures and to assess and manage acute medical deterioration.

Benefits

Benefits includes, improving nursing skills to effectively respond to signs of physical deterioration, increase knowledge and confidence to perform efficiently during medical emergency.

Background

Most healthcare professionals, including those not working in psychiatry, must sometimes deal with psychiatric patients, at least for somatic problems. Opportunities for learning to do so are limited, therefore learning skills in a simulated clinical environment is more likely to result in a translation of skills into practice. It has been demonstrated that short face-to-face courses supported by reading materials can be effective in improving communication skills & self-confidence. This multimodal delivery, called blended learning, offers flexibility and feasibility for educating busy healthcare professionals.

Evaluation and results

Evaluation is based in pre and post evaluation questionnaires. Nurses were given set of questions before the workshop to self assess their level of confidence in performing skills and responding to clinical deterioration and the same questions were asked at the end of workshop for evaluation. At the end of the workshop, clinicians felt confident in performing skills and responding to clinical emergency as evident from evaluation.

Lessons learnt

Clinicians found the content of the workshop useful to their area of work, however were concerned that without refresher they might not be able to retain the skills learned. Therefore, to sustain change, shorter education sessions are to be implemented following the completion of all workshops.