You should actively intervene when the patient is behaving in ways detrimental to his or her health.
Although an intervention principle is to allow the patient to control as much of his or her life as possible, there are instances when a psychiatric disorder can seriously interfere with the patient’s well-being.
An instance might be when a patient is unable to voluntarily decide to rest for the sake of his or her own health. Because of the patient’s ambivalence, he or she might walk into the room in preparation for taking a nap, then walk back out, walk in, and walk back out. You have the difficult challenge of deciding at which point you need to take responsibility for the patient’s well-being, with the ultimate goal of gradually transferring that control back to the patient as he or she achieves some level of readiness. In this instance, it would be appropriate for you to take the patient gently, but firmly by the arm and walk with him or her to the room. After you’re there, you would assist the patient to sit on the bed and then lie down. You might say, “Now you’ll rest. I’ll stay with you while you rest or I’ll check back with you to make sure you’re resting. But now you’ll rest.” To review, monitoring the patient’s physical health includes meeting basic needs, attending to urgent health concerns, recognizing signs of illness, and preparing for the patient’s indecision related to matters affecting his or her physical well-being.