The Role of Therapeutic Interactions between the Forensic Mental Health Nurse and the Forensic Inpatient

Aim: This literature review explores the role of therapeutic interactions between the forensic mental health nurse and forensic inpatients, with a view to attaining a better understanding of how these interactions may enhance... [ view full abstract ]

Aim: This literature review explores the role of therapeutic interactions between the forensic mental health nurse and forensic inpatients, with a view to attaining a better understanding of how these interactions may enhance the forensic inpatient’s quality of care, improve their daily functioning and ease transition back into the community.
Literature Search and Review Methodology:
Databases searched: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PschInfo, PsychARTICLE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Academic Search Complete databases. Search Terms used: ‘therapeutic interactions’, ‘forensic nursing’, ‘forensic patient’, ‘nurse-patient relationship’, ‘forensic setting, ‘aggressive behaviour’ and ‘forensic nurse’. The Boolean operator ‘AND’ was used to combine search terms. Electronic search limiters: peer reviewed articles; articles published in English language; relevant abstracts; articles focusing on the forensic setting; articles published from 2000.
The database searches resulted in 30 relevant citations including qualitative and quantitative research studies, literature reviews and non-research literature. A manual search of the reference lists of relevant articles was also conducted and a further 4 relevant articles were retrieved. The literature spans the period from January 2001 to November 2013 with the exception of one article from 1987 which was deemed relevant. The literature originated from Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States of America.
Three themes emerged from the review: behaviour-changing care: Forensic Mental Health Nurses (FMHNs) knowledge of verbal and social activities; effective training in therapeutic interactions relevant to nursing practice.
Findings from the review clearly show that interactions based verbal and social activities are important to the FMHN-patient relationship. However, FMHNs require training that is geared towards the ability to engage in therapeutic verbal interaction. Such training should focus on skills and knowledge around limit setting, behavioural care and interpersonal interactions that see the patient as a person and not a criminal.
Conclusions and Implementations: Overall, training in therapeutic interaction skills such as verbal and social activities interactions are recommended in the literature and shown to improve the forensic inpatients’ quality of care in the forensic setting.