Forensic Mental Health Nursing

The rise in crime and rates of mental illness globally, especially when these two are connected,have highlighted the need to create special services to provide specialized care both to the victim and the abuser, indiscriminately. The interdisciplinary healthcare team which is providing care in these settings should combine medical and legal knowledge in order to provide appropriate care. The forensic mental health nurse, as a member of this multidisciplinary team, is usually working with criminal off enders, who have been judged "mentally disturbed" and therefore cannot be put in prison. Within the high security psychiatric structure, nurses provide care, plan and implement nursing plan, they teach patients skills that enable them to address the symptoms of their illness and the stimuli of their environment. Τhe forensic mental health nurse, in order to cope with this particular and specialized role, needs to have additional skills such as interpersonal communication under difficult situations with incarcerated person, the police, the court, the other members of the multidisciplinary team.