The quality of psychiatric nursesʹ interactions with patients: an observational study Original Research Article

The behaviour of nursing staff in each ward of a psychiatric hospital was observed at 5-min intervals for between 7 and 10 h per day for 10 days. The nursesʹ behaviour was equally divided between interacting with patients, interacting with staff, solitary task oriented behaviour and other behaviours. There was less staff-patient interaction in the acute ward than in the long-term and psychogeriatric wards and senior nurses interacted less with patients and engaged in more solitary task oriented behaviour. Of the interactions with patients, almost 25% were rated as positive and only 0.3% negative. In the long-term wards almost 47% of the interactions were positive.