Mental health issues coursework

The health of societies and populations is influenced by macro social and economic factors outside the traditional health sector. The government is also capable of influencing these factors at the policy level. The direction of government actions, policies and programmers can impact the mental health of populations either positively or negatively. Policy makers, planners, and government often ignore the effects that come along with health changes in economic and social policies. one of the major predictors of mental disorders is poverty. A formulated policy can greatly impact the mental health of populations positively if it is well implemented through plans and programmes (Coetzee and Laschinger, 2018). The relationship physical and mental disorders are complex, reciprocal and act through various pathways. Mental disorders such as schizophrenia lead to poor physical outcomes and reduced life expectancies.

Patients suffering from mental disorders pay less attention to physical illness symptoms compared to other people. Such patients fail to seek treatment for conditions like hypertension or diabetes. Various studies have proven that patients with untreated mental illnesses are at high risk of having poor health behavior, diminishing their immune functioning, having unfavorable disease effects and not complying with prescribed medical regimens (Constantinou and Shafran, 2018. For example, researchers have shown that patients who are depressed are more likely not to comply with medical prescriptions compared to non-depressed people and that depression is a sign of heart disease. Patients who are suffering from depression have poor physical health and poor self-perceived health compared to people without depression. Both depression and other physical health issues have addictive but different side effects on well-being.

A patient suffering from both heart disease and depression is likely to have poor social interaction than their condition alone. Recent psychological research showed that an empathic response to misery can lead to: empathic distress or personal distress and compassion also called sympathy. Empathy is defined as one’s general ability and aptitude to reason with people in an emotive state regardless of their positive or undesirable valence. Empathetic suffering, on the other hand, is a resilient self-oriented reaction to distressed and confused individuals accompanied by the desire to move from the situation to protect oneself from negative feelings. Lastly, compassion refers to a feeling of concern and the desire to help another person's sufferings. Various meditation-related techniques have been discovered by psychological researchers to help in training social emotions like compassion as well as fostering moods of kindness and generosity.

Communication and interpersonal skills Communication and interpersonal skills in mental health are an essential entity of all the therapeutic interventions in healthcare. Proper knowledge and communication skills will enable nurses and clinicians to critically evaluate a person suffering from mental distress and offer the right therapeutic intervention to such a case through the help of critical communication skills. Lack of great interpersonal skills is a deterrent to the development of positive relationships between nurses and mental health patients’. For effective communication skills to be realized, the nurse in charge of the mental health patient should use a diverse cue of interpersonal skills such as the deployment of verbal and the non-verbal skills into their communication system (Fletcher and Sarkar, 2016). This will stimulate the caregivers and interested parties to engage actively in assisting mental health patients to recover from the distress problems affecting them.

Thus to influence effective care to mental health care for distressed people, mental health nurses have to carefully check on their communication cues and be very proficient in their interpersonal skills. Therapeutic relationship The therapeutic relationship between the nurse and the mental health patient is the basis through which care and interventions are developed to assist the patient. Lack of proper work association that links the patient has always been the leading factor influencing the development of mental health. A good working relationship between the contributing parties has been found to a positive effect on the safety, confidentiality, and reliability in therapeutic care. Though disorders with a complex organic and genetic composition such as schizophrenia might not be eliminated through a proper therapeutic alliance, its spread and effects are considerably reduced through these therapeutic associations.

The physical environmental factors-involves those factors that got the power to influence an individual biological; makeup as well as his or her neurochemistry, therefore, increasing their chances of suffering into a disorder (Buffone and DeLury, 2018). These factors include; extreme work conditions sleep deprivation among others. On the other hand, social environmental factors are those that inhibit an individual ability to deal with stress. These factors include the socio-economic factors of the environment, racial discrimination, and ethnic discrimination which may deteriorate to a mental health problem. The other environmental factors leading to mental health problem include; workplace stigma of employees, family history of abuse, toxic relationships and lack of meaningful work. Different cultures present symptoms to clinicians in a very different way.

Patients from Asian origin are at a higher chance of reporting somatic symptoms like the feeling of dizziness without reporting their emotional status. But further questioning on their symptoms reports that they indeed predispose that they do have emotional symptoms. These variations in reporting are as a result of culture difference. Thus it is true that culture is a great inhibiting factor that contributes to mental health (McEachan and Conner, 2017). Health promotion and potential interventions for the issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health promotion is referred to as the overall state of physical, social and mental wellbeing. To improve the mental health stakes, there is a need for health promotion as well as prevention of ailments that impairs individual brilliance in the workplace.

Conversely, these benefits of mental health promotion have often been underappreciated as compared to physical well-being. Thus mental health promotion is purposed at enhancing a person's well-being when faced with adversity. A critical self-reflection on learning and professional development Description-Despite having a strong background of theoretical knowledge, there is still no substitute for hands-on experience gained through experimental clinical practice. It is true that clinical care experience is the cornerstone of the whole of nursing education and this was realized through my competency-based clinical experience. First and foremost, as a learner of nursing, I used to reflect and hold the perception that mentally ill individuals are extremely violent and dangerous to deal with due to the delicate nature of their illness.

At one particular instance during the early days of the semester; I had mixed feelings of anxiety and unpreparedness. I was really stressed before the start of the mental health clinic program. Skill acquisition was also enhanced through an emphasis on basic listening skills to mental health patients, counseling skills, problem identification skills and therapeutic care to mental health patient. I realized that effective communication cues can help a patient feel relaxed and cheerful thus serve as a good therapy towards the recovery of the patients. Lastly, am full of hope now that am an enhanced individual through the clinical experience and therefore look forward to advancing my psychosocial and counseling skills as I progress in my career. My professional development plan would include the following learning objectives; i.

The overall objective is to focus on improving and connecting my goals with their future plans. Keep myself updated with the new technology via learning activities. Application to Practice A PDP is the best way of accomplishing a variety of different objectives from helping one to plan a career change and improve one's current skills to pushing one to learn and explore new abilities. A PDP will, therefore, help me in identifying my area of study that will provide me with a goal to aim for as well as keep me motivated and accurately track my career progression in the future. Documenting my development, I will be able to show off my enthusiasm, dedication and my ability to plan and learn as well.

CONCLUSION Some mental health issues are as a result of a complex connection between psychological, environmental, biological or social factors. Beyond health care: the role of social determinants in promoting health and health equity. Health, 20, p. Coetzee, S. K. and Laschinger, H. , Constantinou, M. P. and Shafran, R. The effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for psychological outcomes in pediatric oncology: a systematic review. Journal of pain and symptom management, 55(3), pp. , Rees, C. S. , Breen, L. J. , Witt, R. , Pellegrini Filho, A. , Solar, O. , Rígoli, F. , de Salazar, L. M. and Atun, R. Social determinants of health, universal health coverage, and sustainable development: case studies from Latin American countries. The Lancet, 385(9975), pp. Fletcher, D. and Sarkar, M. , Druss, B. , Dudek, K. , Freeman, M.