Experiences and Characteristics of Absconding Patients from Psychiatric Units

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Examined in this essay will be two articles that investigate the experiences and characteristics of absconding patients from psychiatric units. The first, by Intansari Nurjannah, Mary FitzGerald & Kim Foster, was a yearlong case study that looked into the experiences of patients who had absconded from psychiatric facilities in Indonesia. The experiences were documented through 16 semi-structured interviews, focusing on qualitative information. The second journal article, written by Eimear Muir-Cochrane, Krista Mosel, Adam Gerace, Adrian Esterman & Len Bowers, was a study of the characteristics of absconding patients from a psychiatric ward in Australia through the analysis of statistical data. In this essay, the research methods will be compared as well as examined for improvements that could have been made to further facilitate the quality of results that were found from both studies. Nurjannah et al (2009) employed qualitative research to uncover the reasons behind patients absconding from psychiatric facilities in Indonesia, with focus on the culture and health context. Their chosen method was a case study in order to isolate the issues specific to Indonesia. Within it, they chose to engage multiple methods such as interviews, observations and collections of chart audits. The interviews were mostly unplanned, with questions only being utilised to prompt memory from the participants of the absconding events. Through the collection and comparison of the data, Nurjannah et al, were able to conclude that the absconding was mostly due to distorted memories and other contextual factors that indicated the severity of the mental illness. They also concluded that there would need to be significant improvement in the education of nu... ... middle of paper ... ...ds to provide more useful results for real-world application. Works Cited Gray, R 2009. Doing Research in the Real World (second edition). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Hennik, M, Hutter, I & Bailey, A 2011. Qualitative Research Methods. London, UK: Sage. Muir-Cochrane, E, Mosel, K, Gerace, A, Esterman, A & Bowers, L 2010. ‘The profile of absconding psychiatric in-patients in Australia’, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20, 706-713. Nurjannah, I, FitzGerald, M & Foster, A 2009, ‘Patients’ experiences of absconding from a psychiatric setting in Indonesia’, International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 18, 326-325. Yin, R 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods (third edition), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yin, R 2009. How to do Better Case Studies. In L. Bickman and B. Rog. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods, Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

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