Relationship between Feelings and Emotional Attitudes of Psychiatric Nurses toward Self-Injury Patients

Abstract

The two purposes of this study were to clarify feelings that psychiatric nurses have towards self-injury patients and to clarify the relationship between feelings and emotional attitudes of psychiatric nurses toward self-injury patients.

A questionnaire survey was administered to 363 psychiatric nurses with nursing experience to self-injury patients using two measures, the Feeling Checklist Japanese version (FCJ) and the Nurse Attitude Scale (NAS) short form. The psychiatric nurses were asked to recall self-injury patients and non-self-injury patients that they had treated.

Upon comparison of the self-injury patients group and non-self-injury patients group that psychiatric nurses recalled, there were significant differences in the levels of “reject”, “distance”, “involvement”, and “helpfulness” in the FCJ subscale. From this, it can be seen that taking care of self-injury patients can evoke negative emotions such as anger and anxiety in psychiatric nurses. In addition, psychiatric nurses felt that they themselves are not useful in taking care of self-injury patients. The nurses also felt that they themselves are inappropriate for taking care of self-injury patients.

Furthermore, on multiple regression analysis of the results of the NAS short form in the self-injury patients group, it became clear that feelings that the psychiatric nurses were holding affect their emotional attitudes towards self-injury patients.