Although Morse (1991) believes that primary nursing is
advantageous for establishing therapeutic relationships, as
did those participants who had tried it in Garrett’s (1991)
study, my participants did not think it would be ‘a good
thing’. Their negative experiences in the acute setting led
them to believe that primary nursing, while it would provide
the consistency that their own programme lacked, would
also mean that nurses would be ‘getting caught up in their
(anorexic) negative cycle and their way of thinking’. Perhaps
with greater education in mental health issues, participants
would value the benefits of primary nursing and its
advantages for establishing therapeutic relationships. The
primary nursing model could help reduce the ‘mutual
distrust’ issues described, such as ‘playing one nurse off
another’, thereby strengthening the formation of trusting
relationships.