Dear Rafael,
J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs. 2001 Feb;8(1):25-32.
Something special: forensic psychiatric nursing.
Martin T
Abstract
In this paper the claims that forensic psychiatric nursing has achieved the status of a specialist area of nursing are refuted. An examination of the literature demonstrates that specialist knowledge and skills have not been documented. It is suggested that three requirements are necessary if forensic psychiatric nurses wish to achieve specialty status. Forensic nurses have to consolidate their role in the containment and care of patients, they have to return to the nurse-patient relationship as the foundation of psychiatric nursing practice, then, within that relationship, nurses must expand their practice to include dealing with offence issues.
In agreement with the last point nurses need extended education dealing with aggression. violence and offence issues as well as spiritual issues. According to my research on mental nursing competence males were more able to deal with aggressive but also more willing to deal with spirirtual issues than female forensic nurses.
I think there must be specific knowledge of the area of nursing, particularly research in this area. Is there any nursing model that supports this area?
Forensics in general? Not that I'm aware of. A conceptual framework could be designed using most major nursing theories.
The reason I ask the question on why consolidation is even necessary is that forensic nurses do a variety of things within the frame work of our legal system.
Primarily what we are doing is assisting with the collection of evidence. I don't see a difference in how the chain of evidence works between mental health nursing or OB nursing. The forensic nurse still needs to be aware of the rights and needs of the victim as well as the suspect. Any patient care relationship is performed within the usual boundaries and expectations of nursing practice. If, for example, I am caring for a suspect in the ER who is getting injuries attended to and also end up collecting evidence for law enforcement, those are two separate tasks. I would perform evidence collection the same way regardless of the care environment I'm in.
Any care I deliver to the patient, victim or suspect, is delivered within the same standards and scope of practice I would give to any patient. If I think for some reason I may have a conflict of interest between my role as caregiver and my role in evidence collection, then I must involve another nurse as the caregiver to protect the patient's right to beneficence.
I think it is the vastness of the various services provided by forensic nurses and types of training by institutions that confuses the whole discipline. It is however upon the authority bodies in nursing education to design a framework that satisfies a specialty course and forensic nurses to fit themselves in guided by this framework
Dear Dr. Esteves ,
In my opinion, The biggest challenge to consolidate the specialty of Forensic Nurses is unclear nurses role in forensic medicine?
I did some researches in forensic medicine, but I cannot find nurses roles in them.
Regards,
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