The selection by ward managers of an appropriate nursing model for long-stay psychiatric patient care.

The Northern Ireland National Board of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting has stipulated that models of nursing must be utilized on psychiatric nurse training wards. However, since there are approximately 40 such frameworks available to the practicing nurse a problem of choosing an appropriate one arises. The philosophical basis for this research centres around the assumption that all nurses regardless of specialty possess values and beliefs concerning four essential elements. These are: nursing, health, the person, and the environment. In addition the literature reveals that each of the recognized nursing models are also constructed around these four concepts, forming in many cases the very foundations of the model. Within this study it was possible to ask 95 ward managers from 49 long-stay psychiatric wards to view how different models deal with the four elements and to choose a model which best reflects not only their personal beliefs about nursing, health, person, and environment, but also the needs of their patients.