Binary constructs of forensic psychiatric nursing: a pilot study.

Area of Science:

• Forensic psychiatric nursing
• Nursing role constructs
• Security levels in mental health facilities

Background:

• Qualitative or anecdotal evidence suggests perceived differences in forensic psychiatric nursing roles across security levels (high, medium, low).
• A need exists for a standardized tool to quantitatively assess these perceived differences.
• Previous research lacks empirical data on role construct variations in forensic psychiatric nursing environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and pilot an Information Gathering Schedule (IGS) for forensic psychiatric nursing.
• To establish perceived differences in role constructs among nurses in high, medium, and low security settings.
• To create and validate rating scales for inclusion in the IGS.

Main Methods:

• Thematic analysis of literature to construct two binary frameworks.
• Application of Thurstone Scaling to reduce items to 48 and 20 for respective frameworks.
• Development of two 7-point Likert scales, followed by test-retest procedures and Student's t-test on a sample of forensic psychiatric nurses.

Main Results:

• The developed Information Gathering Schedule (IGS) demonstrated suitability for larger studies.
• Two validated scales achieved high reliability, with coefficient values ranging from 0.7 to 0.9.
• The pilot study confirmed the acceptability of the IGS after amendments.

Conclusions:

• The Information Gathering Schedule (IGS) is a validated and acceptable tool for assessing role constructs in forensic psychiatric nursing.
• The IGS can be utilized in larger studies to quantitatively investigate perceived differences in nursing roles across varying security levels.
• This research provides a foundation for further empirical investigation into the nuances of forensic psychiatric nursing practice.