Research Information System
Klinik Psikiyatri Dergisi, vol.26, no.3, pp.219-226, 2023 (ESCI)
Palliative psychiatry is an approach that aims to improve the quality of life of patients and their families by trying to prevent or alleviate suffering through timely evaluation and treatment when faced with physical, mental, social, and spiritual problems associated with serious life-threatening mental illnesses. The fact that individuals with serious mental illness are a disadvantaged group in accessing health services, the rate of physical diseases that are difficult to treat compared to the general population is quite high in this population, their physical diseases are diagnosed later and their compliance with treatment is more difficult, this special group continues to live with a low quality of life and it results in death at an earlier age of 15-20 years. Therefore, considering the burden of serious mental illness on both the family and society, it is clear that palliative care is needed. However, the need for palliative care for individuals with psychiatric illnesses remained in the background, and discussion of the need for palliative care became possible at the beginning of the 21. century. This study was written to raise awareness about where we are in benefiting from palliative care services in our country and in the world and to draw attention to the role of psychiatric nurses, whose role in patient advocacy is at the forefront, in psychiatric palliative care. Psychiatric nurses should realize that there is a serious gap in the field of psychiatric palliative care in our country and should focus on studies in this field.