Meeting the psychological and psychiatric needs of patients Nursing constitutes the largest professional health care group, comprising 45% of full time public hospital staff and 60% of private hospital staff (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001). Therefore, nurses are the group most in direct and indirect contact with people experiencing a mental illness and potentially play an important role in the detection of mental health problems and subsequent care (Sharrock and Happell 2000). Furthermore, as nurses aspire to a holistic model of care, they may help to balance the scales between biomedical and psychosocial support, in a complementary fashion, towards the provision of optimal quality care.