Staff and patient accounts of PRN medication administration and non-pharmacological interventions for anxiety

Most psychiatric inpatients will receive psychotropic PRN medication during their hospital stay for agitation, anxiety, and/or insomnia. While helpful in some cases, caution is warranted with regard to PRN use due to inherent risks of additional medication; therefore, experts advise that non-pharmacological interventions should be attempted first where indicated. However, research to date highlights that, in practice, non-pharmaceutical approaches are attempted in a minority of cases. While some information is known about the practice of PRN administration and the use of and barriers to implementing non-pharmacological interventions for treating acute psychiatric symptoms, full understanding of this practice is hampered by poor or altogether missing documentation of the process. This study used interviews with patients and staff from two psychiatric hospitals to collect first-person accounts of administering PRN medication for anxiety, thereby addressing the limitations of relying on documented notation found in previous research. Our results indicate that nurses are engaging in non-pharmacological interventions more often than had previously been captured in research. However, the types of strategies suggested are not typically evidence based and further, only happening approximately half the time. The barriers to providing such care are centred on two main beliefs about client choice and efficacy of these non-medical strategies. Implications for research and practice are discussed.