Abstract
Mental Health Policies and Regulations Impacting Psychiatric Nursing Practice in Saudi Arabia
Author(s): Wael Habib Alanazi, Abdulrahman Nayir Alanazi, Faisal Najem Khalaf Aljohani, Sehrish Khan*, Nazzal Mayoof Sair Alenezi, Meshari Hussain Alanazi, Mohammed Awad Alanazi, Fahad Awadh Dughayman Alanazi, Abdulkarim Sagi Alenezi and Nawaf Mohammed Al Dahou Al HazmiBackground: Mental health policies and regulations are essential within the psychiatric setting as they help and show the direction to provide adequate service to the patients. It is also crucial that a psychiatric institute regulate the mental health of psychiatric nurses as they constantly work with psychiatric patients, which makes them overwhelmed. This article examines the mental health policies and regulations affecting psychiatric nursing practice in Saudi Arabia.
Method: To classify necessary research published between 2019 and 2023, a comprehensive search of databases, including Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science, was done. The inclusion criteria for this study were studies written in English that specifically studied the impact and results of mental health policies and regulations affect psychiatric nursing practices. Furthermore, the studies chosen had to use well-established scales for measurement and provide valuable data on team dynamics. Ten studies were included in the synthesis after initial screening and quality assessment.
Results: The result identified the six themes, which are educational interventions to increase the practice of psychiatric nursing; mental health challenges affect psychiatric nurses' practices; institutional policy impact on psychiatric nurses' practices; mental health regulation and stigmatization; developing professional attitude toward psychiatric disorder and defined psychiatric nurse’s roles within the psychiatric setting enhance psychiatric practice.
Conclusion: It is concluded that defined roles, psychiatric institutions’ rules and regulations, and education and training provided to the psychiatric nurses have positively related to nurses' practice within the psychiatric ward. The more policies are defined for psychiatric nurses, the more effective service or treatment they provide to the patients.