Red Flower's Journal of Psychiatric Nursing

 Nurses’ functions   include assistance to an individual in his recovery from sickness as well as peaceful death. Due  to emergence of  chronic debilitating  diseases such as  HIV /AIDS  and cancer  and ageing of  the population, need of  palliative care  has risen. Palliative care enhances  quality of  life  and  readies patients and their families   for  impending death. Effective communication is an integral part of successful palliative care. It is very important to recognize the obstacles to communication. Therapeutic communication requires   the ability to listen to the patients actively,  honestly answer  to their questions and allow verbalization of their feelings. Communication involves verbal and non-verbal aspects. When engaged in providing palliative care, nurses are required to sit with patients and families in crisis and answer to their difficult questions. 

 The psychiatric consultation liaison nurse( PCLN) acts as an important link between medical and mental health services. The need for such roles are emerging due to upsurge in the complex needs in the diverse populations who have either physical illness with mental illness as comorbidity or have primary mental illness with secondary physical illness. There is also geropsychiatry wherein PCLN services are requiring utmost attention. With implementation of such roles there will be better competent care delivered, probability of improved quality of life, early detection and treatment of cases, cost effectiveness and reduced length of hospital  stay.

 Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness, which causes significant morbidity and disability. Patients suffering from schizophrenia have a relatively shorter life span in comparison to their healthy counterparts. It follows chronic, waxing-waning course and needs long term treatment. Co-morbidities are common in patients with schizophrenia, may it be co-morbidities involving physical or mental health. Presence of co-morbidities compromises quality of life and increases the disability as well as burden of care. Every patient suffering from schizophrenia should be evaluated  and treated for their co-morbidities adequately to have a better quality of life.

 Healthcare professionals’ attitudes determine their knowledge and behavior towards evaluation and treatment of people living with psychiatric disorders. Physiotherapists (PTs) are an essential part of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation team to provide holistic care in the mental health perspective along a symptom control- quality of life continuum. This review article summarizes  the findings from research studies on attitudes of PTs towards psychiatric disorders from an evidence-informed perspective through a preliminary search of PubMed database. Findings from four assessment studies and two treatment studies on attitudes among PTs were descriptively summarized to provide an evidence-informed implication for education and practice.

 Background: Alcoholism is now considered a disease affecting physical, mental, social and spiritual domains of health. With the severity of alcohol dependency rates more care of such patients becomes the priority, as well as educating the low and moderate dependent alcoholics to avoid falling prey to life threatening complications. Objectives:To assess the levels of alcohol dependence and to seek association between alcohol dependence and selected demographic variables like age, marital status and educational status. Methodology: The survey was conducted at a drug de-addiction centre  in  Delhi. 30 patients admitted in the de-addiction centre were selected through purposive sampling technique.  Those clients taking alcohol primarily were included in the sample. The alcoholic patients were interviewed by administering a standardized questionnaire that is Short Alcohol Dependence Data Questionnaire (SADD). The questionnaire was administered in the interview room. Results: The study findings revealed that a little over half of the alcoholic patients experienced high alcoholic dependence rate i.e. 50.33% and there was no significant relationship found between alcohol dependence and the selected factors like age, marital status and educational status. Several kinds of therapeutic approaches show promises as a basis for a new  generation of ambulatory  treatments. The most significant contribution of this survey is the focus it provides for the direction of future research and preventive efforts.

Keywords: Alcohol Dependence Syndrome; Alcohol abuse; Drug De-Addiction Centre.

 Background: Without a doubt there are few categories of crimes that affect the community and its victims as much as rape, sexual assaults, and the other so-called sex-related or sex crimes. Being raped, sexually assaulted or experiencing any form of unwanted sexual attention is a very distressing experience with effects that can be long lasting. Aim: To assess the attitude of youth towards the female rape victims. Methods and Material:  Sample consisted of 300 graduate students from three selected colleges of Punjab. Simple randomized sampling technique was followed to select sample. Attitude towards rape victim scale developed by Wards’ (1988) was used.  The study was conducted from 12th Oct.2015 to 30th Oct.2015. The data was analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics wherever required. Results: The descriptive statistics showed that 64% of study  subjects had moderately  favourable  attitude , followed by 27% of subjects who expressed favourable attitude and rest of the  subjects (9%) exhibited unfavourable attitude towards the rape victims. Chi-square computed significant relationship of both gender   (= 9.950, p<0.001) and type of family  (= 10.688, p<0.01) with attitudes towards rape victims. Conclusion:  A little more than one fourth (27%) of the population explicitly showed favourable attitude, which challenges the society for a great need to generate  awareness among youth to foster positive attitude towards rape victims.