Case Analysis paper - Essay Example

Mentally healthy people experience social heath, biological heath and good normal human characters during interaction and when dealing with various situations. Mentally sick people need to see psychiatrist, who may either be a nurse or a doctor. In the case of a nurse handling a case of a mentally sick patient, the nurses face many cases of dilemma. Quigley 2007 stated that nurses frequently find themselves in a position of making decisions which are not solely medical or nursing, but of a moral or ethical nature.

At this point, the nurse will have to depict professional accountability with patient involvement to address this critical issue. Nurses working in the care of the mentally ill or psychiatric patients face dilemmas concerning respect of autonomy versus paternalistic behavior. Questions arise at various incidences, like when the patients do not what to take their medication, refuses treatment that should be administered to them or suffer from delusions. In closed wards, the nurses are required to participate in decision making concerning the use of forced seclusion or the separation of the affected patients.

The situation creates a gap of information between the nurses or the doctors and the relatives of the patient. Often, there is variation in the perspective of what is good for the patient. The opinions of the relatives may differ from that of the relatives or guardians of the affected patient. For that case, there is involvement of the patient-in the case of a mild mental illness, the nurses and the relatives of the patient. In absence of the relatives, guardians may be involved in the decision making process.

It is also professionally responsible for the nurse to participate in decision making. The whole decision does not only affect the patient. Its impacts are felt cross the participants, inconclusive