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Nursing is a profession that has care and science as cornerstones on which the rest of our functions are based: health education, promotion of self-care, management, teaching, prevention, research, health care ... It is for This is why we are present in practically all areas of life, and how could it be less,

there are also nurses in mental health units

.

Specifically specialist nurses.

And it is that in 1932 the Higher Psychiatric Council, chaired by Dr Lafora, established the creation of the specialty of psychiatry for Spanish nurses.

Thus was born what was then called the "psychiatric nurse aptitude certificate" and today it is known as "specialty in mental health".

Last

The acute units of general hospitals, or even the psychiatric hospitals themselves, are far from what part of the population still imagines when they hear about them.

They have nothing to do with the image that the cinema or fantastic literature has projected in our thinking.

And when you step inside one of these units, you instantly realize that you won't feel like Clarice walking down the stone hallway to the last cell to meet Hannibal Lecter.

These types of centers, where patients

did not receive any type of treatment and their sole purpose was to separate them from the rest of society

, fortunately they are something from centuries ago and whose existence was reflected by artists such as Francisco de Goya.

The people who cared for the sick were based more on religious faith than scientific understanding, being centers supported by charity and with more restrictive than therapeutic purposes.

Present

Currently, the presence of specialist nurses is constant in mental health units.

Both in the centers known as "day hospitals" and in the hospitalization areas or in the follow-up consultations, they become the reference person for these patients since a close relationship is established between the two.

The

purpose of these units is, above all, therapeutic and insertion in society

, accompanying and caring for patients according to their needs and throughout the entire disease process.

Looking for good adherence to treatments, something that is sometimes complicated by the lack of awareness of the disease, the side effects of the treatment itself or the lack of support in their family environment.

Nurses thus become the closest elements to the patient, being able to detect any change in him or his environment and having the tools to measure the impact that these changes may have on the evolution of his disease.

In

follow-up consultations

, the work of nurses is based on four pillars: providing information about the treatment to be followed, answering questions to the patient and their family, detecting changes in their behavior and possible side effects of the medication, and reinforcing the patient achievements.

Future

One of the innovations in mental health care involves a new therapeutic tool known as

sensory comfort rooms.

. At the moment it is being successfully implemented in various mental health units throughout the Spanish geography. They consist of a room decorated with vinyls and warm lights, and equipped with sofas, weighted blankets that help to relax, stress balls ... The purpose of these rooms is to be used by the patient during a crisis, when he is agitated or distressed. , but it is important that they know them beforehand in a quiet moment to learn how to use it and discover the resources it offers. They create an environment that favors therapeutic relaxation and where you can put into practice strategies with which to cope with stress, leaving containment measures behind.

Unfortunately

if something has been present both in the past and in the present, it is the social stigma that surrounds mental illness

. Seeing the sick as a threat, discriminating against them and rejecting them because of the prejudices that a part of society still has causes that, in many cases, those who suffer or believe that they may suffer from a mental illness do not dare to verbalize it.

At work or on the street, no one escapes from you because you have diabetes or heart failure, but with a mental illness things change.

Some friends think twice before calling you, in that job interview the options of being hired will be less and that cousin with whom you used to meet to play sports hardly ever calls you.

I hope and wish that celebrating days like today, World Mental Health Day, will help these prejudices disappear in the future.

But for that there is a lot of work to do.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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