• 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. 30, 6, 18-24. doi: 10.7748/en.2022.e2130
Peer reviewThis article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software
Correspondence Conflict of interestNone 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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