S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

87

‘Mainstreaming’ mental healthcare into the community and other primary healthcare settings became a priority of the Australian Government in the mid to late 1990s (Happell, 2007). This process was gradual and different states reformed their mental healthcare services at different paces. Search terms utilised for all databases were ‘rural’ AND ‘remote’ AND ‘nursing’ AND ‘mental health’ AND ‘training’. The search was limited to peer-reviewed journal articles. While the search was for articles relating to ‘generalist nurses’, as opposed to ‘mental health nurses’ (an exclusion criteria) a broad search strategy was employed at the initial stage using the term ‘nursing’. Any retrieved articles relating specifically to mental health nurses were excluded. The abstracts of 135 extracted journal articles were screened. Table 1 outlines terms and definitions used in this paper. Table 3.2 Commonly Used Terms and Definitions

Term

Definition

Generalist nurse

A registered or enrolled nurse who does not have a specialist nursing qualification in mental health nursing.

Generalist nursing Rural and remote

Nursing care and treatment in non-mental health settings.

Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia Plus (ARIA+) is the standard Australian Bureau of Statistics-endorsed measure of remoteness. ARIA+ groups areas into five categories: major cities, inner regional, outer regional, remote and very remote (Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, 2001). For the purposes of this paper, ‘rural’ equates to the ‘outer regional’ classification and ‘remote’ encompasses ‘remote’ and ‘very remote’. Any person who has a mental health diagnosis or has experienced a mental behavioural disorder or illness and as a result required nursing care.

Mental health client

Retained articles were included if the abstract included one or more of the terms ‘rural’ and/or ‘remote’, ‘nurse/nursing/generalist nurse’ (but not mental health/psychiatric