520
Detailed Needs and Requirements: Psychiatric Unit
Social spaces are important as a setting for diagnosis and therapy.
Generally these become the focus of the unit's activity.
Staff work areas adjacent to social areas provide an opportunity for
unobtrusive observation, informal social interaction, or direct
intervention where appropriate.
Current treatment patterns are such that any member of the psychiatric
team may be involved with a particular treatment.
525.1.4
Primary Users
1. Patients
The diagnostic make-up of a typical psychiatric unit will include
patients with psychotic, neurotic and character disorders.
Regardless of the diagnosis, patients may be sad, apprehensive,
resentful, apathetic or blas. Their feelings about themselves typically
include a sense of failure, anxiety, uncertainly, anger, frustration,
loneliness or depression.
Admission procedures include routine physical, laboratory and X-ray
examinations as well as a careful patient history and a range of
psychodiagnostic tests.
Patients' needs vary from time to time according to treatment and
progress. Sometimes patients need seclusion and privacy, while at
other times they need to be able to join with individuals or larger
groups. There is a general tendency to withdraw socially, which needs
to be sympathetically discouraged.
The majority of patients are physically fit, out of bed and active, and
capable of caring for themselves and performing a variety of task
under nominal supervision. Their activities include many things which
are routinely done in the home or place of work. They feed
themselves, and take care of hygiene and toilet requirements.
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