The attitudes of nurses working in a psychiatric setting towards complementary therapies in the treatment of anxiety

Abstract

Anxiety is one of the main mental health problems facing a high proportion of the western population. At some point or another nurses working in a mental health area, will encounter the problems associated with this condition. Traditional psychiatric treatments for anxiety have focused on the use of anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) medication but increasingly complementary therapies (CTs) are being used, Both by professional and sufferers alike, to combat the effects of the condition. However, very little is available to guide their use. The purpose of the study was to explore the attitudes of a sample of nurses working in a psychiatric setting about the use of CTs in the treatment of anxiety. A 34-item Likert-scale and a free text question was constituted for this non-experimental quantitative study. These were distributed to 40 nurses of the Maltese Association of Psychiatric Nurses (MAPN) by a third party, to maintain total anonymity, with a response of 75% (n=30). Data was analysed by aggregating the scores of the individual items and grouping them together as per their relationship with the study objectives - which were to explore nurses' attitudes towards CTs, to find out if they had used them personally and if they had used them with their patients. The main conclusion of the study showed that 70% of the sample felt that CTs should be used in the treatment of anxiety with half the sample using them themselves. Despite this however, the level of knowledge about types, usage and effects of CTs was limited. The study recommends that more robust research is needed to explore the effects of CTs when used for the treatment of anxiety, to explore attitudes and beliefs of other health care members in the mental health multidisciplinary team about the use of CTs. Study units for nursing students should be made available to guide the use of CTs within clinical practice.