The role of the nurse in community psychiatry

The transformation of psychiatry during the last decades has also resulted in changed and more independent roles for mental health workers of all categories. The nurse has traditionally had a central role in psychiatric care. In the community oriented care the nurse still plays an important role which can be summarised in four points: 1. focus on the rehabilitation of long term mentally ill patients, 2. the case manager function, 3. to provide individual support in the daily living and 4. to provide support to the relatives of the patients. Those different roles are described. The research being done on these different approaches is presented and it is concluded that case management, social skills training and family intervention programmes have all proved to be effective. In these programmes nurses often play a central role.