Visiting Psychiatric Nurses’ Process of Supporting Users to Improve Their Lifestyles While Respecting Their Decision-making

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify visiting psychiatric nurses’ process of supporting home-visit psychiatric nursing service users with an increased risk of developing or aggravating lifestyle-related diseases to improve their lifestyles while respecting their decision-making. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 nurses. Through data analysis using the modified grounded theory approach, 14 concepts and 6 categories were identified. The nurses conveyed [findings on each user’s lifestyle from a nursing perspective] to users, and supported them to maintain their [awareness of lifestyle improvement]. On the other hand, the nurses accepted the [difficulty of making a progress from awareness-raising to implementation and continuation], and supervised users [to promote personal recovery], [giving priority to their mental stability], with an understanding of users’ difficulty in maintaining an improved lifestyle as their [challenge of life]. Thus, the support provided by visiting psychiatric nurses for users to improve their lifestyles while respecting their decision-making may be summarized into a process, where these nurses give priority to users’ mental stability, with an understanding of their difficulty in improving their lifestyles as a disability characteristic and challenge of life, supervise them to promote personal recovery of their daily lives, and support them stepwisely and continuously.