Reflection And Experience With A Mental Health Crisis In New Zealand

47% of individuals in New Zealand are predicted to experience a mental health disorder some time in their life. Maori and Pacific Islander ethnic groups are nearly twice more likely to be in this 47% than any other ethnicity (Taylor, 2015). When an individual with or without a mental health disorder is not coping with caring for themselves, a mental health crisis may occur. A mental health crisis is an opportunity to help promote change as the individual is not coping with their current situation and therefore help and support is needed. Working with individuals during a mental health crisis is becoming a lot more common and therefore nurses need to improve their evidence-based practice. This is why nurses need selected knowledge, skills and

My own reflection and experience with mental health crises is also discussed highlighting the development of my strengths and limitations in these situations.

In Australia, the number of people presenting to ED in a mental health crisis has increased to nearly 25,000 between 2010-2011 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2012), New Zealand would have very similar statistics and therefore mental health crisis episodes are on the rise and a better approach to these situations may be necessary. The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand (2016) define a mental health crisis as an emergency where someone is at risk of harming themselves or others. This definition describes a mental health crisis accurately as the main concerns in this situation is the safety for the individual or others as quite often a crisis involves the individual attempting to commit suicide. Suicide is a big concern

Poor coping skills are found to have a large influence an individual’s physical as well as mental health (Taylor and Stanton, 2007). Examples of coping skills may be problem solving and actively seeking help and support from family, friends or professionals. McMahon, Corcoran, McAuliffe, Keeley, Perry and Arensman (2013) looked at multiple studies that focused on the relationship between poor coping skills and mental health crisis’s such as suicide attempts and self-harm. They found that there is definite evidence to say that there is an association between the two and therefore if an individual has poor coping skills they are at higher risk for experiencing a mental health crisis. Even though there was evidence saying that there was an association, there was some inconsistencies amongst the studies carried out including how they gathered the data that may have influenced the results. However, another study by Pelzer, Schaffrath and Vernaleken (2014) also found similar results stating that environment stressors and individual vulnerability have a big influence on the development of mental health disorders. Therefore, when these stressors are not resolved with coping skills, mental health crisis’s are at higher risk of occurring. As well as self harm and suicide attempts being a result of poor coping skills, individuals often turn to alcohol and drugs as a way of