The recent global socioeconomic crisis and its effects on mental health in Port...

• Author(s): Santos, José Carlos Pereira dos ; Cutcliffe, John
• Date: 2013
• Origin: Repositório Científico da Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra
• Subject(s): socio-economic crisis; Mental health; mental health nurses
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

While these data seem to 'paint' a rather bleak picture, it is the view of the authors that this time can be actually be an opportunity for mental health nurses, as periods of economic downturn can be times of innovation for service delivery and dynamic changes in roles and skill mix. Mental health nurses may not realize this, but they are in a primary or pole position to give voice to the quality principle and lead the development of new models of care. Mental health nurses could develop innovative new models of care delivery, and nurses are ideally placed to co-ordinate the delivery of care closer to patients' homes and along care pathways (RCN, 2009). Community care, skill-mix, psychotherapies, e-health-therapy and further research need to be reconsidered to improve the mental health of the population, and perhaps we, as Mental Health Nurses, are in a unique position to contribute to and achieve that.