Innovations in mental health nursing rehabilitation - The NIMHANS experience

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Sailaxmi Gandhi

National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

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Mental health nursing rehabilitation in India is still not well established. This is due to many factors; such as, acute shortage of mental health professionals, poor implementation of the Mental Health Act of India, custodial care in several hospitals, non-therapeutic family emotional climate and high levels of stigma. The National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS) which is also an institute of national importance is a premier super-specialty neuro-psychiatric hospital in the country. It is a 1000 bedded hospital. There are only five nursing faculty who have multiple roles–both nursing service, education, research as well as administration of patient care. Five years back, the psychiatric rehabilitation services was re-vamped with a multi-disciplinary team. This presentation will focus on various innovations in mental health nursing rehabilitation. The multi-disciplinary component itself is an innovation and does not exist anywhere else in India. There are other innovations such as inclusion of complimentary therapies such as yoga, supported education, family as partners in the recovery process, persons with mental illness as peer therapists, initiation of a domestic skills section, involvement of volunteers from society (concept of corporate responsibility), placement within the hospital services, home based rehabilitation, SERWICE (Services for Enhanced Recovery With Intensive and Continued Engagement) wherein trainees are linked with one patient throughout their course, training of social skills, independent living skills, healthy life style (exercise and sports programs), caregiver support groups (sanjeevani vedike), etc. These will be discussed at length during the presentation.

Biography

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Sailaxmi Gandhi has completed her PhD in Nursing from NIMHANS University. She is an Associate Professor of Nursing at NIMHANS, a premier neuro-psychiatric super-specialty in India. She has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed and indexed journals. She has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of reputed journals. Her area of interest is in rehabilitation, suicide prevention, school mental health programs and man-power capacity empowerment. She is the recipient of many awards, the most recent being the prestigious Best Nurse Educator Florence Nightingale Award from the President of India on 12-05-2014.

Email: sailaxmi63@yahoo.com