Attitudes of psychiatric nurses to treatment and patients

A sample of 208 psychiatric nurses and nursing assistants completed a questionnaire assessing attitudes to treatment and patients. Significant attitudinal differences between groups were found in relation to professional grade, age and sex. Staff with more professional training were less authoritarian and impersonal than staff more junior in the hierarchy. Younger males with Registered Mental Nurse training were found to be significantly less inclined towards physical methods of nursing and treatment. Male nurses tended to favour therapeutic techniques which emphasized independent nurse action and psychological proximity to patients. Female nurses were more favourably inclined to physical methods of treatment and were significantly more authoritarian and formal towards patients in line with the traditional stereotype of the general hospital nurse. Results are discussed in relation to the setting up of new treatment regimes within psychiatric hospitals and the influence that staff attitudes have on their functioning.