(Hummelvoll, 1996, p. 13)
The professional relationship that the client has with the nurse is often one of the most fundamental of all the relationships the client has in his or her life. The nurse can act as an advocate between the client and other health care professional as well as an advocate for the client with his or her own family. The holistic needs of the client are often met through this and other relationships, when they are strong, consistent and productive.
A an authentic caring relationship between clients and nurses. This relationship stimulates mutual empowerment and helps the client pass through the conglomerate of not easily accessible helping systems in the United States. The purpose of this reciprocal and chosen partnership is to increase the client's safety and quality of life. Here too, empowerment is a means to better health, with the nurse acting as the client's advocate, avoiding the kind of "herding" that Kendall rejects. (Hummelvoll, 1996, p. 11)
The issue of ethics is central to the nurses ability to provide services for a client as his or her advocate and in one article the psych nurse's ability to base decisions on ethical grounds for the greater goods of the client is explored, and within the work the role of nurse as patient advocate is explored, though secondarily through the language of the article. Though issues become much more complicated when involuntary procedures are concerned nurses rely on experience, not excluding the experience with the patients...
Without the role of advocate these decisions would be much harder to make.
If a psychiatric nurse is a patient advocate, as the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics (ANA, 2000) requires, when may she place a patient on an involuntary hold? When is the nurse justified in medicating a psychotic patient against his or her will? When does the nurse declare the situation calls for the "last resort" (ANA, 1999) and place a threatening patient in seclusion and/or restraints? The answer to these questions is, "It depends." Every time a psychiatric nurse implements an involuntary procedure, that nurse makes an ethical decision. Psychiatric nurses make such decisions daily when caring for the seriously mentally ill. (Vuckovich 2000, p. 111)
Though the author does note that the role of advocate changes within the context of involuntary procedures, as it then becomes a role more like, advocate/protector the importance of interpersonal and professional experience with patients is crucial. With the review of these works it becomes clear that the role of the nurse as patient advocate in psychiatric nursing is crucial to the well-being of the patient and though it evolves with the differences in care and the level of self-advocacy a patient can provide it is a major part of the care process.
Resources
Hummelvoll, J.K. (1996) "The Nurse-Client Alliance Model." Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. 32/4, pp.12-17.
Vuckovich, P.K. (2000) "The Ethics…
