Engagement, Responsibility, Collaboration, and Abandonment: Nurses’ Experiences of Assessing Suicide Risk in Psychiatric Inpatient Care

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of hospital beds and staffing at the wards.

	Ward 1 16 hospital beds		Ward 2 10 hospital beds
Work shift	RN/RPN	EN	RN/RPN	EN
Day^a	2	4	2	4
Evening	2	2	2	2
Night	1	2	1	2
Day/Weekend	2	2	2	1
Evening/Weekend	2	2	1	2
Night/Weekend	1	2	1	2

^a This staffing should be able to provide care including constant observations of 1 patient and/or in the event of short term sick leave for 1 staff member.

Table 2. Overview of sub-themes and themes in the results.

Subthemes	Themes
Relying on the relationship	Creating a caring alliance
Knowing about the patient
Trusting one’s intuition
Managing a challenging task	Taking responsibility
Being afraid of making the wrong decision
Bringing work worries home
Feeling alone in decision-making	Collaborating with colleagues
Seeking support from colleagues
Lacking knowledge and training	Feeling abandoned
Lacking routines
Feeling burdened by a high workload