Brief Introduction and Importance to Mental Health Nursing
The article entitled “Recovery in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): A Qualitative Study of Service Users’ Perspectives” written by Katsakou, Marougka, Barnicot, White, & Lockwood (2012) presented an exploration of the perception of recovery from individuals diagnosed with BPD, classified as service users, or those contracting professional mental health treatment. The study had been pursued due to the lack of clear understanding of the manner by which persons diagnosed with BPD attained their respective personal recovery goals and were deemed to be consistent with the recovery goals or clinical improvements provided by mental health practitioners. The study is considered important to mental health nursing in view of the proposed changes that need to be incorporated in the interventions and treatment methods provided by mental health professionals on a more individualized basis.
Statistics to Support the Significance of the Topic
The topic of study is significant after gathering relevant statistics pertaining to people diagnosed with BPD. As revealed, “the prevalence of the disorder is between 1% and 5.9% in the general population. Suicide attempts and/or self-harming are common in 69–80% and completed suicide occurs in up to 10% of those diagnosed” . Due to the alarming numbers of people who exhibit tendencies for suicide or self-harming, views of these people diagnosed with BPD were solicited to document their perception of recovery and assist in the development of more effective interventions to improve the quality of life.
Summary of the Article
Discussion on How the Information could be Used for Practice
The information could be used for nursing practice especially the need to determine the personal goals of those diagnosed with mental illness, specifically BPD, prior to proposing a plan of treatment or care. Nurses and mental health practitioners should accurately determine the personal health goals from the patients prior to developing a plan of care. Doing so would enable integration of the patients’ goals and planned intervention as well as path of treatment would therefore be designed to fulfill explicitly defined targets. As specifically noted, “professionals might also need to work with service users towards devising comprehensive individualized case formulations, including all treatment targets that are important to them, their priorities and long-term plans on how their targets might be met and which services might be involved” . Minimizing suicidal and self-harming tendencies have been the general goal of mental health professionals given the severity and intensity of harm to the person diagnosed with BPD. However, with the findings revealed, service users’ personal goals need to be accurately
determined so that the plan of care could be tailored to the specialized need of the users.
Identification of Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article
The strengths of the article included the following: (1) it being a pioneer in exploring the perception of recovery from the point of view of people afflicted with BPD; (2) a relatively large sample size which was an appropriate representative of the population; (3) participants were diverse in geographic and levels of recovery backgrounds ; and (4) the research team was composed of professionals in their respective fields of study and involved service users from diverse study stages . Concurrently, the weaknesses of the article included the following: (1) participants all came from East London; (2) the kind of therapeutic interventions focused only on Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) and Mentalization-based Therapy (MBT); (3) the mental health professionals’ view of the word ‘recovery’ were not solicited; (4) the response rate might not be representative of the entire population; and (5) the participants’ view of recovery were influenced by the two (2) therapeutic interventions that were dominantly applied .
Discussion on Recommendation of the Article to other Colleagues
The article would definitely be recommended as an enlightening source of authoritative information on the subject of BPD and the participants or service users’ view of recovery. The results emphasize the need to tailor the interventions to the mental health needs and personal goals of recovery of the person diagnosed with mental illness.
Conclusion
The current review achieved its objective of presenting relevant information gained from the article and considered how the information could enrich nursing practice, in general. In sum, the relevance of determining personal goals of recovery was highlighted as an essential component of the treatment process and mental health professionals should incorporate these
goals in the mental health patients’ plan of care.
Reference
Katsakou, C., Marougka, S., Barnicot, K., S. M., White, H., Lockwood, K., & P. S. (2012). Recovery in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): A Qualitative Study of Service Users’ Perspectives. PLoS ONE, Vol. 7, Issue 5, 1 - 8.
