Mental Health Nurses’ Perception of Overnight Observations on Mental Health Inpatient Units: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Overnight observations of mental health inpatients have been criticised for interrupting inpatients’ sleep and potentially undermining recovery. No studies have examined the perceptions of mental health nurses who complete overnight observations, limiting key information necessary to guide improvements. This study aims to understand mental health nurses’ perceptions on overnight observations and views on practice re-evaluations, as well as assess whether nurses’ perceptions align with inpatients as reported in previous research. To fulfil the aims ten mental health nurses working on mental health inpatient units engaged in semi-structured interviews which were analysed using Content Analysis. Nine themes were identified and grouped into three categories: (1) staff and inpatient experiences, (2) impacts on treatment, recovery, and risk management, and (3) opinions on change. Majority of participants were critical of overnight observations, describing their negative impacts on inpatients’ sleep and wellbeing. This aligns with previously reported inpatient views. There is scope for reassessment on how overnight observations are conducted to promote inpatients’ sleep, recovery, and safety.

Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Caroline Hunt for her helpful feedback on a draft of this manuscript and Mr Raymond Modini for proofreading the manuscript.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the Sydney Local Health District, Concord Repatriation General Hospital (2022/PID01579).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper, people residing in mental health hospitals are referred to as “inpatients” (as opposed to consumers or service users) since the purpose of hospitalisation is for treatment, and in recognition that many inpatients are involuntary and therefore do not make an active choice to “consume” or utilise the service (Lugg et al., 2023; Modini et al., 2021).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.