Difficulties Experienced by Nurses in Psychiatric Hospitals During the Transfer of Psychiatric Inpatients With...

To describe the difficulties experienced by nurses when transferring psychiatric inpatients with physical complications to general hospitals.

A cross-sectional descriptive study.

A total of 300 psychiatric hospitals were randomly selected from psychiatric hospitals nationwide in Japan. Nurses answered an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire that quantitatively inquired about their experiences of difficulties when psychiatric inpatients with physical complications were transferred to general hospitals. The questionnaire included 17 items with five-point options. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed.

A total of 242 responses from 80 hospitals were included in the analysis. More than 70% of the participants experienced somewhat or more difficulties because they felt that patients with mental illness were treated differently or hard to be understood and accepted when psychiatric inpatients with physical complications were transferred to general hospitals. Information sharing with general hospitals was related to significantly lower difficulties among nurses in psychiatric hospitals about the way healthcare providers in general hospitals viewed patients with mental illness, whereas the extent of cooperation and communication with general hospitals was not significantly associated with difficulties.

Information sharing is related to lower difficulties in nurses in psychiatric hospitals when transferring inpatients to general hospitals.

We followed STROBE statement in this study.

Better linkage between psychiatric and physical healthcare, including improved referral pathways based on the information sharing, is important.

No patient or public contribution. However, three nurses in psychiatric hospitals engaged in clinical care were involved in the study because the survey was conducted with nurses at psychiatric hospitals.