A Practical Introduction to Mental Health Ethics

Book excerpt: As a mental health nurse, possessing an ethical sensibility and developing ethical reasoning is vital. This book is a practical introduction to the skills and knowledge the mental health nurse is professionally required to develop in their journey towards effectively managing complex ethical decisions. Written with the training mental health nurse in mind, this book is a clear and concise guide on how to approach common, ethically-complex situations mental health nurses will eventually find themselves faced with. It includes textboxes which take the reader into a ‘real world’ scenario to help them explore the moral and ethical issues discussed throughout the chapter. To ensure professional currency, the content of this book is mapped to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s pre-registration education standards of 2010, and uses a scenario-based approach in order to provide a pragmatic and robust resource. A Practical Introduction to Mental Health Ethics is essential reading for pre-registration mental health nursing students, while also being of value to registered mental health nurses working in ethically challenged areas such as dementia care, psychiatric intensive care units.