NURSING 411: Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing

Some professional nursing organizations with relevant position papers or 'white' papers may include the Association of Psychiatric Nurses Association, https://www.apna.org, the  International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses, https://www.ispn-psych.org/, and the American Nurses Association, https://www.nursingworld.org/.

The easiest way to find these papers is to conduct a Google search, limiting the results to the organization's website URL. For example, copying and pasting the following bolded text into the Google search box below yields some relevant results.

position paper seclusion or restraint site:apna.org

Modify your search, using alternate terms or URLs to find other/different results.

Browse the list of QSEN (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses) Competencies to find the one that most pertains to your topic. None of them will match exactly; you will make the connection as to how the competency applies, following the assignment directions.

Some governmental agencies that may have relevant information include the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, www.samhsa.gov and the National Institute of Mental Health, www.nimh.nih.gov. Use the same strategy you used to find position/white papers, this time using the government agencies' URLs. For example, enter the following search terms into the Google box below:

assessment suicide risk site:www.nimh.nih.gov

You can also limit to only site:gov and broaden your scope to include materials published on the PubMed website. You may need to make your search terms more specific, for example:

assessment suicide risk psychiatric unit nursing site:gov

Best databases to search:

Finally, you may want to consider using research textbooks that can help you in analyzing and synthesizing your research. Following are some examples found in BU Books & More.