What do nurses do when they take to the streets? An analysis of psychiatric and mental health nursing interventions in the community.

Little research can be found on nursing practice for populations needing non-traditional mental health care. A descriptive study was done with the nurses on the Community Link Service (CLS), an intensive psychiatric community follow-up program, to identify nursing interventions and the types of situations encountered. These nurses use the guiding principles of two current treatment modalities, Assertive Community Treatment and Clinical Case Management. The Nursing Interventions Classification System (NIC, McCloskey & Bulecheck, 2000) was used to code nursing interventions reported through interviews and critical incidents. The nursing interventions represented 93 interventions and included 400 different activities. The analysis showed that Case Management (79%) and Complex Relationship Building (71%) were their most common interventions followed by Medication Management (64%) and Surveillance (60%). Systems such as the NIC are useful tools, but they may not give a complete description of nursing practice in this setting.

Sex-specific development of cortical monoamine levels in mouse.

Several mental health disorders exhibit sex differences in monoamine levels associated with dimorphic cortical ontogeny. Studies in rodents support the notion that monoamines can profoundly modulate morphogenesis. Here, we show significant sex and hemisphere differences in BALB/cByJ mice on postnatal day 3 for dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-TH), supporting the notion that sex differences in early monoaminergic ontogeny may result in dimorphic cortical development. Such sex differences may also influence differential behavioral and/or clinical outcomes.