Discussion
The findings from this study indicate that the process of a comprehensive mental health nursing assessment consistently involves a number of activities. It involves engaging with the patient and putting them at ease. This can be seen as the nurse normalizing the process of assessment to demonstrate empathy and to relax the patient so that they feel comfortable discussing often-difficult issues. Alternatively, it can be seen as indication of the subtle use of power relationships to have the patient divulge symptomatology.
The majority of nurses in this study indicated that the process of a comprehensive mental health nursing assessment involved the identification of the patient’s problem(s). This process of problem identification is augmented by the reconciliation of inconsistencies, where the nurse explores the internal consistency of the patient’s narrative with their own observations or information from other sources. Finally, the process is ongoing; as long as the patient has contact with the nurse, the process of assessment continues. The results of this study are important as a review of the literature failed to find any research into the process of a comprehensive mental health nursing assessment Coombs et al. (2011) and thus, this study takes the first steps in better understanding contemporary mental health nursing assessment practice. The findings of this study point to the process of a comprehensive mental health nursing assessment as a situated and negotiated social activity as well as a discrete stage in the process of nursing that requires information processing, problem identification and diagnostic reasoning (Latimer 1998).