Critically analyze the aggressive issues faced by young male patients in psychiatric intensive care units.

Brown and Bass (2004) authors of the Journal of Mental Health consider Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICU) as a special place for patients who have a mental illness. These units are ‘care’ units until they are referred to as detention units for reasons of patient aggression. There is no clear justification for providing a detention center for patients who have a mental illness. Such patients are mentally ill, and everyone knows that about them. It would not be fair to have them detained in any way as that poses a threat of having acute stress which may lead to a panic attack as is explained by Donhoe (2010) through a journal on Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Detaining a mentally ill patient should be the last thing thought of during the process in which treatment is administered. Arguing that the patients are only detained until they pose a risk to themselves or others raises the question, how would a patient be detained against posing a threat to his/her own life? Are they tied up on beds? Are they locked up in ‘material free’ rooms? If so, that supports the argument that the abnormality of the environment causes more harm to the mentally ill. What they need is a stress-free environment.

The approach that the adolescence stage is the stage where self-esteem is affected could be right. It is the period when young boys and girls get to transition to young men and women and a lot of change in the process. One of the things that get to change is the psychology of young men and women based on what they think people think about them. It affirms the finding that young males between the age of 14 and 25 are significantly affected. Could racial difference affect the degree of mental illness occurrence to a particular race? It depends on some factors. The obvious consideration would be whether a specific Race is exposed to racism. Corrigall and Bhugra believe that the Black Ethnic group adolescents are affected three times more than the White British group. It could be a racial difference, but it could be something else. More young men from the Black Ethnic groups come from humble family backgrounds, and they have to struggle their way up. It is different from the White British young males who may grow up into their family businesses or graduate from fancy Universities. The truth remains that the Black Ethnic male will face more stress even if he is not Race sensitive. Therefore the question is not race per se.

Could it be true that men are known to be violent towards staff? Well, it could be true that they are known to be violent, but that doesn’t mean that the perception is accurate. Violent goes with masculinity and toughness which are attributes that are dominant to the male against female. We have fierce females; it is just that it becomes an issue if the male is the violent one. This view is not criticizing that males could no have violent behavior but shading light that females are violent as well. It is then proper that Safeline (2018) provides data that male patients are three times more likely to display aggressive behavior than female patients.

Back to the detention room where mentally ill patients are placed, the design of the rooms and building is geared towards the safety of the patients. For nonviolent patients, they are in a mix with other patients undergoing mental treatment. It raises the question, is everyone safe in the mixed up area? I mean, this is an institution full of patients who are mentally ill. What happens if a patient who never indicated signs of aggression suddenly becomes violent and causes life-threatening harm to those around him/her? The damage will have been done, and for the mentally ill, the effects could be devastating. There is a need for a 24-hour daily physical monitoring of the patients through the entire treatment period. When it comes to the secluded rooms for the patients posing a high risk to others, they should at least have two or more staff watching over. Such patients are a threat not only to others but also to themselves. This argument means that anything to them could be a weapon. Even though the rooms are free from materials that could be used as a weapon, other physical features such as teeth can be more dangerous.

Violence containment strategies are essential in controlling mentally ill patients who could have violent behaviors. There are a lot of emerging issues in the detonation centers for the mentally sick and each day proves that nurses have limited capabilities of dealing with aggression issues. It would be wise if the nurses assigned the duty to control and monitor violent patients are male nurses. Like already outlined herein, violence goes with masculinity and thus managed better by masculine nurses. Besides, it would not be objective to assign male nurses for strength and not the explicit knowledge of how to contain a violent patient. Lantta et al., (2016) outlines the need for a comprehensive method for dealing with patient violence. Inclusive would mean all rounded, which indicates that the nurses assigned the duty of containing violence must have all rounded capability to do so. It does not only include being masculine but also having the intellectual ability to manipulate a violent patient. It is how a therapeutic builds a relationship.

During the process of administering treatment and care for the mentally ill patients, it is imperative that aggression is considered a routine dealing. The patients are mentally ill, they have no idea what they are doing, and so nurses should step up their game and deal with passive aggression for the mentally ill as part of the job. It will be different if nurses face passive aggression from patients who are not mentally ill. But in this case, patients who are mentally ill are likely that they would be aggressive at some point. They are not in the right state of their mind. Being that 60,000 assaults were reported against NHS staff in the UK and 69 percent of those were from mentally ill patients should not be a wonder. If violent behavior is done by someone who is mentally healthy, then questions should be asked. It is because the mentally ill patients are vulnerable to aggression that they are admitted in the first place so their cases should be different. Caution still has to be taken because violent behavior from a mentally ill patient is still as risky as from a mentally healthy patient.

Through the entirety of the study, it is essential that the carrying out of such analysis improves the safety measures taken by nurses when handling mentally ill patients. Besides, since the NAPICU dominates the study, the findings would not be as holistic as required for there is a need for ‘bird’s eye view’ when dealing with aggression and violent behavior. It would reduce the effects of static reasoning when it comes to how to deal with passive aggression for the mentally ill.