Community psychiatric nursing: focus on effectiveness

The focus for provision of mental health services is now the community in most developed countries. Different ways of organizing community mental health services are evident in the literature. Community psychiatric nurses (CPNs) have a key role to play in these services but the literature indicates that the CPN role varies from area to area within different models of service provision. This paper presents the findings of a study in which 13 service users and 15 CPNs in five focus groups discussed the effectiveness of mental health service. Selected staff and service users were chosen from a representative range of community mental health services across Northern Ireland. Service users expressed concern at the variety of CPN and other professional roles within multidisciplinary teams and some CPNs expressed dissatisfaction with their role and with role boundaries within teams. These findings suggest that further work is needed within community mental health services to ensure the role of the CPN remains effective and develops to meet the needs of service users.