By JESSICA ORLANDO, Solutions News Bureau
The mental health crisis in America is overwhelming and seems to be growing by the day.
According to Mental Health America, Michigan ranks number 18 in adult prevalence of mental
illness. That means 1,469,000 adults in Michigan identify with the DSM-5 criteria of mental
disorder diagnosis. Michigan also ranks number 15 in access to a care map – a plan for families
and healthcare professionals in receiving the best healthcare options.
Crisis Prevention Intervention (CPI) training seeks to implement training such as nonviolent
crisis intervention education for individuals in the healthcare field to improve the likelihood of
individuals seeking help for their mental illness as well as reduce the stigmatization of mental
disorders. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has also required a
contingency plan for healthcare workers to be formally educated and certified in crisis
intervention.
Solutions News Bureau recently talked with Brittini Marzonie, a licensed practical nurse, about
her role in a psychiatric unit.
Please describe your role as a caregiver, and what it involves on a day-to-day basis?
I am a nurse at a psychiatric hospital. My credentials are licensed practical nurse, or LPN. On a day-to-day basis, a huge part of my job is to pass patients their medications and to educate them on what their medications are there to do as well as observe for any side
effects.
What is a specific issue, or major challenge, you face in your role? Are there others?
A major challenge you face when dealing with patients in crisis is they do not always understand why they are in a psychiatric hospital. Patients come in due to a crisis – whether they are a harm to themselves, or others, or maybe they are unable to take care of themselves due to psychosis or other mental health condition(s).
Often, this leads to confusion and them [patients] being scared and uncomfortable because things
that we are used to doing on an everyday basis like going to work, taking care of loved ones, leaving at our leisure, our social media are all taken away from patients so they can focus on treatment and getting better in a short time – typically seven to 10 days.
Patients sometimes become upset and escalate and threaten to hurt themselves or others around them. When this happens, we, as caregivers, must try to deescalate the situation either by talking to them or administering medications to help with anxiety, anger, or agitation.
Working in healthcare, it is very easy to get overworked and overwhelmed, so it’s important that the staff working with these patients puts the patient first over any personal issues they are going through.
– Brittini Marzonie
When you encounter this challenge, who do you turn to for help? What helps you respond to, or could potentially help with, this challenge?
When we face these challenges, it is important for everyone that treatment teams such as the RN, Behavioral Health Technicians, Team Leads, Doctors, Social Workers, etc. all work together and communicate how to best respond to an escalated patient. We are providing training yearly to help us with that. A major component to this is CPI training, and this training is important because it teaches us how to deescalate a patient along with identifying early signs of a patient who may become anxious or agitated.
What kind of help do they provide? Can you explain further how this helps? What does it alleviate?
When the treatment team must intervene, it is our job to keep the patient safe and build that rapport with them after we do so. This is so important in building that trust back up with the patient, so they continue to trust us and continue to get the help that they need.
What things reduce the effectiveness of this kind of help and what would it take to overcome those limitations?
” … if a patient has had a bad experience in the past due to how they were treated at a psychiatric hospital, it makes it harder to trust the system in asking for help. Also, if you don’t have a team that works well together, that may also affect how these situations are handled.
Working in healthcare, it is very easy to get overworked and overwhelmed, so it’s important that the staff working with these patients puts the patient first over any personal issues they are going through. It is very important as an employee who works in mental health, especially an acute care facility, that you work as a team.
What do you want people to know about yourself, and caregivers in our community?
I think it is very important as a mental health provider to break the stigma of what it is like to be in a psychiatric facility. We all go through some tough times in our lives and not everyone handles those times in the same manner. Some of us need these acute facilities to help us get on the proper medications and get a break from reality to work on ourselves. I think more people would voluntarily check themselves in if short-term psychiatric hospitals had a better reputation.
Editor’s Note: Brittini Marzonie is the cousin of the reporter.
This story was produced in collaboration with the New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations and universities dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about successful responses to social problems. The group is supported by the Solutions Journalism Network.