Summary of psychiatric journal

Summary of (Psychiatric) Journal Article
Journal Article Summary
Reason/purpose of the article
The purpose of this article is to explain how effective and beneficial hourly nursing rounds in mental health inpatient settings are. Even though there have been a number of studies highlighting the need for hourly nursing rounds in general hospital setting its impact among psychiatric inpatients has not been unearthed. Therefore, this pilot study seeks to fill the gap in the existing literature on the effectiveness of introducing hourly nursing rounds in psychiatry settings.
Major theme/hypothesis
The major hypothesis of the article is that hourly nursing rounds would benefit inpatients in the psychiatric mental healthcare setting. The researchers make an extensive review of the literature on hourly rounds of nurses and seek to apply its positive outcomes to mental healthcare settings as well. The researchers take special efforts to distinguish hourly rounds from frequent checks by the nurses; the latter simply seeks to ensure patient safety while hourly rounds aim at establishing a “ one-to-one verbal interaction to evaluate a patient’s comfort and needs” (Moran et al, 2011, p. 23). The researchers seek to measure the outcome or success of hourly nursing rounds by analyzing patient satisfaction scores, the variance in the number of patient requests at the nurses’ station as well as the number of complaints made by patents (Moran et al, 2011, p. 24).
Findings
The pilot study emphasize that both patients and nurses benefitted from hourly rounds on psychiatric wards. The findings reveal that hourly rounds not only equip nurses to better identify individual problems of patients but also has a dramatic positive impact on patient satisfaction levels. The article clearly demonstrates how hourly rounds brought about remarkable changes in all pilot units: the overall patient satisfaction improved considerably while there had been a significant decrease in the requests made by patients at the nurses’ stations (Moran et al, 2011, p. 25).
Conclusion
The conclusions are drawn from the pilot study display the positive impact of hourly nursing rounds in mental health inpatient settings. The results of the study show that hourly nursing rounds increase patients’ satisfaction, nurses’ prompt responses to patient requests, and result in greater sharing of nurses’ information about medications” (Moran et al, 2011, p. 26). However, the study also emphasizes that hourly round methods need to vary from unit to unit depending on the needs and requirements of patients. Thus, the researchers pinpoint that the introduction of hourly rounds on psychiatric wards are beneficial in the mental healthcare setting as it caters to patient well-being and nursing effectiveness.
Critical evaluation of authors premise
There is no doubt that the article assumes significance in psychiatric care setting as it throws light on the need for introducing hourly nursing rounds among psychiatric inpatients. The researchers have rightly identified the gap in the existing literature and have piloted a well-designed intervention to know how effective hourly nursing rounds in mental health care settings are. However, the findings of the study cannot be applied to psychiatric wards in general due to its small sample and this necessitates the need to have more comprehensive and in-depth studies in this regard.
Application to nursing practice
The article contributes immensely to nursing practice and cares in psychiatric units. The outcomes of the pilot study emphasize the positive impacts of hourly rounds in mental healthcare settings. As both the staff and the patients benefit from the introduction of hourly rounds one can also think of making hourly nursing rounds a permanent fixture on all mental health wards. It can be inferred that hourly rounds contribute towards better patient care and yields greater patient satisfaction.
References
Moran, J., Harris, B., Ward-Miller, S., Radosta, M., Dorfman, L., & Espinosa, L. (2011). Improving care for mental health wards with hourly nurse rounds. Nursing Management, 18 (1), 22-26.