Do educational interventions improve the attitudes of emergency nurses towards patients who self-harm? A systematic review
Intended for healthcare professionals
Evidence and practice    

Do educational interventions improve the attitudes of emergency nurses towards patients who self-harm? A systematic review

Lauren Holt Nurse, Emergency Department, Charing Cross Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, England
Jennifer Oates Senior teaching fellow, School of Health Sciences, University of Surrey, Surrey, England

Why you should read this article:
  • To identify the importance of emergency nurses being able to provide appropriate care for patients who self-harm

  • To learn about the findings of a systematic review that examined the effects of educational interventions on emergency nurses’ attitudes towards patients who self-harm

  • To recognise the need for improved training for emergency nurses on suicide and self-harm

Negative nurse attitudes towards emergency department patients who self-harm may increase the risk of repeated self-harm and suicide. This article details a systematic review that aimed to examine the evidence on the efficacy of educational interventions to improve the attitudes of emergency nurses towards patients who self-harm. Eight articles describing six intervention studies, published between 2001 and 2018, met the criteria for inclusion. The review found that educational interventions for emergency nurses improved their attitudes to patients who self-harm, but there was a lack of consistency in the approaches used and a reliance on self-report measures. Further training for emergency nurses is needed because of their crucial role in self-harm and suicide prevention.

Emergency Nurse. doi: 10.7748/en.2022.e2130

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Correspondence

j.oates@surrey.ac.uk

Conflict of interest

None declared

Holt L, Oates J (2022) Do educational interventions improve the attitudes of emergency nurses towards patients who self-harm? A systematic review. Emergency Nurse. doi: 10.7748/en.2022.e2130

Published online: 17 May 2022

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