CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 64Geriatric Care and Nursing HomesHealth and Well-being StudiesPsychiatric care and mental health services

Improving geriatric mental health nursing care: making a case for going beyond psychotropic medications

Voyer, Philippe, Martin, Lori Schindel·2003·International Journal of Mental Health Nursing
DOI 10.1046/j.1440-0979.2003.00265.x
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Providing high-quality mental health nursing care should be an important and continuous preoccupation in the gerontological nursing field. As the proportion of elderly people in our society is growing, the emphasis on high-quality care will receive increasing attention from administrators, politicians, organized groups, researchers and clinical nurses. Recent findings illustrate unequivocally the important contribution of nurses to achieving the goal of high-quality geriatric care. However, the quality of care for the elderly with psychological difficulties has not been addressed. The objective of this article is to illustrate that while nurses can accomplish much to improve the well-being and mental health of the elderly, their skills are often underutilized. Psychotropic drugs are often the first-line interventions used by health-care professionals to treat mental health concerns of elderly persons. Alternative therapies that could be implemented and evaluated, such as psychological counselling, supportive counselling, education and life review, are infrequently used. Nevertheless, current scientific data suggest that it would be very advantageous if nurses were to play a dominant role in the care of elderly people who are depressed or experiencing sleep pattern disturbances. The same can be said about elderly chronic users of benzodiazepines, as well as those with cognitive impairment. Evidence for the use of psychotropic medications as a viable treatment option for the elderly both in the community and in the long-term care setting who are experiencing mental health challenges is examined. Alternative non-pharmacological approaches that nurses can use to augment care are also briefly discussed.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1046/j.1440-0979.2003.00265.x

Cites

88 of 88 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

3 of the 91 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Voyer, P., & Martin, L. S.
Affiliations
  • Université Laval (CA)
  • McMaster University (CA)
Corresponding author
Voyer, Philippe
ORCID
Venue
International Journal of Mental Health Nursing
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2003-03
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
11-21
ISSN
  • 1445-8330 (ISSN-L)
  • 1447-0349
DOI
10.1046/j.1440-0979.2003.00265.x
OpenAlex
W2033965597
Cited by
64
References
91
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
FWCI
1.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor, 19 d)
Locations
  • International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Health and Well-being Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychiatric care and mental health services
Keywords
psychotropic drugs, non-pharmacological treatment, psychological counselling, supportive counseling, life review, geriatric depression, sleep disorders, benzodiazepine use, cognitive impairment, quality of care, long-term care, community mental health services
MeSH terms
Aged, Complementary Therapies, Mental Disorders, Dementia, Depression, Geriatric Nursing, Geriatric Psychiatry, Humans, Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders, Long-Term Care, Nursing Assessment, Patient Care Planning, Psychiatric Nursing, Psychotropic Drugs, Geriatric Assessment, Total Quality Management, Patient Selection, Nurse's Role

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review