Performance of nonpsychiatric nursing activities reported by psychiatric head nurses in general hospital settings

The psychiatric head nurse is considered the key to the quality of nursing care given on the psychiatric unit. She holds a uniquely influential position on the unit had has a decided effect upon the conditions which exist there. She is directly responsible for the nursing care given on her unit by nursing service personnel. The increasing complexity of medical practice has necessitated change in nursing care. These changes have increased the difficulty of coordinating the activities on the unit and have resulted in more responsibilities for the psychiatric head nurse role and add to the confusion and uncertainty which surrounds the functional role of this position. Studies concerned with the head nurse and the psychiatric head nurse are limited in number and have been done primarily in the eastern United States. These studies indicated that head nurses were performing many activities which are not on the head nurse level. There is a difference between what the head nurse should do and what she was actually doing. This study has been concerned with on aspect of the psychiatric head nurse role. Two questionnaires were devised to obtain information from psychiatric head nurses in general hospital settings about the non-psychiatric nursing activities they believed they performed. Non-psychiatric nursing activities were viewed in terms of how many they performed, how many head nurses performed these activities and how much time they devoted to them. The sample was taken from eight western states