Psychiatric wards with locked doors – advantages and disadvantages according to nurses and mental health nurse assistants

Aims and objective. To describe nurses’ and mental health nurse assistants’ perceptions of advantages and disadvantages about working on a psychiatric ward with a locked entrance door. Background. Psychiatric staff sometimes needs to protect patients from harming themselves or others. To keep the entrance door locked may help staff to achieve this goal. How locked entrance doors at psychiatric wards are experienced by staff, working on these wards, has been investigated to a very limited extent. Design. The study was explorative and descriptive. Method. Audio taped, semi‐structured interviews with open‐ended questions about advantages and disadvantages about working on a psychiatric ward with a locked entrance door, were conducted with 20 nurses and 20 mental health nurse assistants. Data were analyzed with content analysis. Results. A content analysis revealed eight categories of advantages and 18 categories of disadvantages. Most advantages mentioned by nurses and mental health nurse assistants were categorized as providing staff with control over patients, providing patients with a secure and efficient care and protecting patients and staff against ‘the outside’. Most disadvantages mentioned by nurses were categorized as causing extra work for staff, making patients feel confined, making patients feel dependent and creating a non‐caring environment. Most disadvantages mentioned by mental health nurse assistants were categorized as causing extra work for staff, making patients feel confined, causing emotional problems for patients, making staff's power obvious and forcing patients to adapt to other patients’ needs. Nurses and mental health nurse assistants mentioned more disadvantages than advantages and nurses mentioned more disadvantages than mental health nurse assistants. Conclusion. Nurses and mental health nurse assistants perceive a number of advantages and disadvantages for themselves, patients and significant others with a locked door at a psychiatric ward. Most of these concern patients’ experiences. Relevance to clinical practice. It is important for staff working within psychiatric care to reflect upon the fact that a locked entrance door is connected with a range of negative as well as positive perceptions and to minimize patient and own concerns connected to the locked door.