S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

94

3.2.6.1.2 Knowledge Clark et al. (2005) reported only 19% of nurses agreed they had the necessary skills with which to work and 17.1% said they had the necessary skills to assess and identify clients with a mental illness. In the same article a majority (56.4%) of nurses reported not knowing how to treat a mental health client in a crisis. Likewise Reed and Fitzgerald (2005) reported nurses ‘professed to a limited knowledge of mental illness and heavy reliance on personal and nursing experience to guide care’ (Reed & Fitzgerald, 2005). In Slaven and Kisely’s (2002) study, 46.5% of nurses reported a lack of knowledge and hence had difficulties determining the genuineness of threats of DSH and suicide when undertaking a risk assessment. Jelinek et al. (2011) reported some limited verbatim comments from interviews which highlighted the belief by rural nurses that they lacked knowledge in mental health nursing and, particularly, lacked the necessary skills. 3.2.6.1.3 Attitudes Clark et al. (2005) explored this domain in the greatest depth of the four studies that were focused on nurses’ experiences and perceptions of caring for people with a mental illness or issue. Clark et al. (2005) found that over a third of nurses (38.7%) did not want to work with mental health clients and just over a third of nurses were ambivalent (34.4%). Further, half (50.5%) reported feeling uncomfortable and 57% found difficulty in caring for mental health clients, yet the vast majority (88.4%) of participants believed that caring for clients with a mental illness was an important component of a rural generalist nurse’s role. Reed and Fitzgerald (2005) also obtained a 50% negative response rate to nurse attitudes concerning mental health clients. ‘Some … stated they disliked caring for people with mental health problems and would not do so if they had a choice’ (Reed & Fitzgerald,