How Recovery Attitudes Relate to Views on Coercive Interventions and Interpersonal Characteristics in Psychiatric...

To examine the associations among psychiatric nurses' attitudes toward mental health recovery, attitudes toward coercive interventions, and interpersonal care characteristics, particularly the dimensions of dominance and coldness.

Cross-sectional study.

Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect demographic information and assess recovery-oriented attitudes, attitudes toward coercive interventions, and interpersonal characteristics. Intergroup differences were analysed using t-tests and analysis of covariance, with Bonferroni corrections applied, whereas structural equation modelling was used to examine the relationships among recovery-oriented attitudes, attitudes toward coercive interventions, and interpersonal characteristics.

Survey responses were obtained from 604 nurses working in public psychiatric hospitals in Japan between August and October 2022. Recovery-oriented attitudes, attitudes toward coercive interventions, and interpersonal characteristics were assessed using established instruments.

Higher recovery-oriented attitudes were associated with lower levels of stigma-based evaluations of service users and lower levels of interpersonal coldness, whereas the direct association with dominance was limited. Staff nurses reported higher stigma-based evaluations and greater interpersonal coldness than head and deputy head nurses, whereas nurses working in forensic psychiatric wards demonstrated higher safety paradigm scores and negative evaluations than those in community support services. Overall, nurses' knowledge of and attitudes toward recovery were associated with their evaluations of service users and interpersonal care styles, even when coercive interventions were occasionally required.

Recovery-oriented attitudes appear to play a potentially important role in promoting ethical, person-centred psychiatric nursing.

Incorporating recovery-oriented education into routine psychiatric training may help nurses reduce stigmatizing evaluations. This approach may also decrease interpersonal coldness, thereby fostering empathetic care and preserving service user dignity when coercive interventions are occasionally necessary.

These findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting that recovery-oriented attitudes may reduce negative caregiving behaviours, thereby advancing ethical practice and improving the quality of psychiatric nursing.

This study adhered to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology reporting guidelines.

No patient or public contribution was involved in the design or conduct of this study.