Psychiatric nursing

Psychiatric Nursing

Psychiatric nursing or mental health nursing is the appointed position of a nurse that specialises in mental health, and cares for people of all ages experiencing mental illnesses or distress. These include: schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, psychosis, paranoia, and self-harm.

Pronunciation

Psychiatric Nursing: /saɪˈkaɪətrɪk ˈnɜːrsɪŋ/

Etymology

The term "psychiatric" comes from the Greek "psyche," meaning "soul" or "mind," and "iatros," meaning "healer." "Nursing" comes from the Latin "nutrire," meaning "to nourish."

Related Terms

• Mental Health: A person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being.
• Schizophrenia: A long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion.
• Mood Disorders: Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.
• Anxiety Disorders: Mental health disorders characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one's daily activities.
• Personality Disorders: Types of mental disorders in which your ways of thinking, behaving and functioning are significantly different from what society considers normal.
• Eating Disorders: Any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.
• Suicidal Thoughts: Thoughts about how to kill oneself, which can range from a detailed plan to a fleeting consideration and does not include the final act of killing oneself.
• Psychosis: A severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
• Paranoia: An instinct or thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality.
• Self-harm: Deliberate injury to oneself, typically as a manifestation of a psychological or psychiatric disorder.

This WikiMD.org article is a stub. You can help make it a full article.