UM20H Student Guide: Building Therapeutic Relationships with Mental Health Patients

Clinical manifestations:

1. According to Fišar (2023), Schizophrenia patients experience hallucinations, in which the patients see people and hear voices while no one is present.  This positive symptom has also been represented by Bob, as he put fire in his apartment justifying that demons were stressing him.
2. Correll and Schooler (2020) have reported that delusions are also the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia, in which patients feel that they will be harmed/attacked. Bob also imitated this positive symptom, as he attacked staff and co-consumers multiple times, feeling that they might harm him.
3. Referring to Fišar (2023), speech impairment or confused and disrupted communication is also a negative clinical manifestation of Schizophrenia
4. It has been reported by Correll and Schooler (2020) that Schizophrenia patients also are incapable of processing their thoughts, which is a cognitive symptom.

Figure 1 Secondary Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Source: Correll and Schooler (2020)

Other than the primary symptoms mentioned above, this figure depicts the common secondary negative symptoms of Schizophrenia.

Building a Rapport and therapeutic Relation with Mental Health Patients:

Nurses play a crucial role in the process of health care. They are required to develop an effective and positive relation with individuals they provide services to. Building a meaningful interpersonal relationship is essential for person-centered and recovery-oriented health care services specially to the mental health patients.  It is internationally accepted that a significant therapeutic and interpersonal nursing relationship works positively with other human health processes among individuals and communities. Forming therapeutical relations with mental health patient has significant impacts on results of provided interventions and treatment (Hartley et al, 2020).

Bob is schizophrenic patient with multiple health issues like hypertension and diabetes. He also had been living alone in his apartment that had adverse effects on his mental health and social skills. It is important to develop a positive human relation with Bob that also work as a therapy for him to early recovery.

An effective and positive nurse-patient relation can be built by practicing trust, communication, respect, empathy, confidentiality, empowerment and genuineness.

Practicing Trust:

It refers to practicing a relation of acceptance towards the patient in social, ethical and legal norms so that they develop a confidence to rely upon the nurses or health care providers and co-operate in their treatment.

Communication:

 Communication is the most effective way of conveying or receiving information about patient’s needs, perception, knowledge about affective state and desires. Effective communication with polite and kind gestures can be used to develop a therapeutic relation with mental health patients (Penda, 2017).