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Clinical supervision for nurses working in mental health settings in Queensland, Australia: a randomised controlled trial in progress and emergent challenges

Director, Osman Consulting Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia; Conjoint Professor, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Julie Winstanley

Director, Osman Consulting Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia; Biostatistician, Melanoma Institute Australia, Sydney, Australia; Associate Professor, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Several national and state-based inquiry documents have reported long-standing and major concerns about mental health service provision in Australia. In particular, accounts of the difficult circumstances that surround the recruitment and retention of high-quality mental health nurses have clearly emerged, independent of jurisdiction. However, the privately experienced cost of working and coping in contemporary mental health settings, especially when the resilience of nursing staff is tested remains poorly understood. Clinical supervision (CS), a structured staff support arrangement, has shown promise as a positive contribution to the clinical governance agenda and is now found reflected in central policy themes elsewhere in the world. However, the concept of CS remains underdeveloped in Australia. The background to a unique randomised controlled trial (RCT), currently in progress in Queensland, Australia, has been described in this study. The efficacy of the most widely adopted model of CS that may address the promotion of standards and clinical audit issues, the development of skills and knowledge and the personal well-being of the supervisee will be tested. This study, funded by the Queensland Treasury/Golden Casket Foundation, will focus not only on the outcomes for individual mental health nurses but also examine the quality of care they provide and the effects of both on patient outcomes. This study will seek to establish a sustainable, strategically significant contribution to the knowledge base both for the mental health nursing workforce in Queensland (and beyond) and the patients they seek to serve.

Key Words: clinical supervision • randomized controlled trial • research • mental health nursing

Journal of Research in Nursing, Vol. 14, No. 3, 263-276 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1744987108101612


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