Effectiveness of Psycho- educational Program for Nurses about Psychiatric Patient's Advocacy

Background: Advocacy is taking action to help people say what they want, secure their rights, represent their interests and obtain services they need. Advocates and advocacy schemes work in partnership with the people they support and take their side. Aim : The study aimed to evaluate the effect of psycho- educational program for nurses about psychiatric patient's advocacy. Design: A quasi-experimental design was used to achieve the aim of the study. Setting : This study was conducted at the department in Benha psychiatric hospital in Benha City, Qalubia Governorate, which is affiliated to General Secretariat. Subjects: A purposive sample of 60 nurses were working in Benha psychiatric hospital. Tools of data collection: I) Interviewing sheet consisted of two parts (a) Socio-demographic sheet for personal characteristics and (b) questionnaire sheet about nurses’ knowledge toward psychiatric patient’s rights and advocacy and II) Observation checklist to measure nurses’ experience toward psychiatric patient’s advocacy . Results: There was a highly statistically significant improvement in total score of nurses' knowledge and experience toward psychiatric patient's advocacy between pre and post implementation of the program. Conclusion: Psycho-educational program had a positive effect on nurses' knowledge and experience about psychiatric patient's advocacy. Recommendations: Teaching of advocacy skills in the hospitals and institutions in which an in-service training programs for mental health nurses on knowledge about nurse's advocacy of the psychiatric patient occurs and the nurse's position as an advocate for the rights of psychiatric patients should be emphasized in the curriculum.