Further training of outpatient psychiatric nurses in Greece before psychiatric reform

---

Evmorfia Koukia, George Avramidis and John Papatriantafyllou

University of Athens, Greece
Psychiatric Nurses Union, Greece
IASIS Attikon Hospital, Greece

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

---

According to mental health care reform in Greece, psychiatric hospitals had to be closed down for their greater part and units would have been integrated into general hospitals, during the year 2014-2015. The psychiatric care reform is not yet completed. Due to the economic depression of our country in the last 5 years, the Greek government has asked from the European committee, an indefinite extension and financial support for the implementation of the psychiatric care reform program. When the reform will take place psychiatric nurses will be a part of a larger team of nursing staff working in psychiatric outpatients units. The aim of the study was to identify nurses’ educational needs for further training concerning outpatient provision of care. A questionnaire based study was conducted among 164 psychiatric nurses working on two major psychiatric hospitals to be closed. The majority of nurses noted that the most important issue in everyday work was the effective communication with the client and patients’ symptoms management. Nurses thought to be unprepared for management abilities and evidenced based care in community settings. Problems between health care team and lack of time and personnel was causes of additional stress in their work. The results have shown that nurses were adequate prepared for clinical care but there is a need for further training especially in law issues and nursing role in community settings.

Biography

---

Evmorfia Koukia is an Assistant Professor in Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing in School of Health Sciences in University of Athens Greece and is a Scientific Collaborator in School of Health Sciences in European University of Cyprus. She is also working at the Community Centre of the University of Athens. She is the President of the Faculty of Mental Health Nursing at the Hellenic Union of Nurses (ENNE). She has a number of publications. She has an extended experience in teaching and working in various clinical settings.

Email: ekoukia@nurs.uoa.gr