The Talk About the Psychiatric Patient

Abstract

Essential to psychiatric nursing practice and care, verbal handovers and ward rounds are reporting systems for communication that shapes psychiatric staff's ability to recognize, understand, and construct patients, as well as patients’ ability to construct themselves. Given the centrality of such language in psychiatric practice, the aim of this study was to describe how psychiatric staff talk about patients in psychiatric wards, what their talk encompasses, and what consequences it might pose for patient care. Empirical data were collected from audio recordings of staff discussions of patients during nine verbal handovers and three ward rounds in six different general psychiatric wards in mid and southern Sweden. Findings showed that to describe patients’ mood, characteristics, and behavior, nurses used culturally common words and concepts related to three themes—good patients, bad patients, and to stay or be discharged—and six subthemes—looking well, looking poorly, desirable patients, undesirable patients, continuing work, and being discharged. However, since assessments of and decisions about patients’ conditions and care used everyday language and did not involve patients’ participation, opportunities for patients to participate in their own care were rare.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge all participating staff during the audio recordings and the patients who gave their informed consent.

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.