This site is an archive of a closed Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program, provided for educational and historical purposes. Please note that this content is not routinely updated and that contact information and social links may not work.
Psychiatric Nurse Staffing in Hospitals: Is it Adequate?
Acute psychiatric care is an essential component of a comprehensive system of mental health services (The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003). Dramatic shifts in psychiatric inpatient utilization patterns began in 1955 with the deinstitutionalization from long-stay psychiatric hospitals to community care settings. This was accompanied by an overall decline of psychiatric inpatient beds per capita (Center for Mental Health Services, 2006).