Study on the Medialistic orientation, behavior of hospital and mental health treatment

This research uncovers the practical consequences of li beralizing legal reform in the mental health system for the staff of a large public psychiatric hospital. The examined reform grants psychiatric inpatients more rights to determine their own compliance with mental health treatment. Two dominant schemas tha t are currently used to understand the ho s- pital’s working culture are examined in light of the role of ward staff. A new paradigm, the “ward control outlook,” is developed to reflect the unique responsibilities of the staff and the daily challenges they fa ce on the wards. This model predicts that staff in a mental hospital will behave less like rights advocates or psychiatrists and more like patrolling police officers whose primary job is to enforce rules. Ethnographic research took place in one mental hosp ital in the United study finds that the behavior of hospital staff on the wards conforms to the expectations of the new ward co n- trol model. Hospital staff valued the enforcement of rules and the maintenance of order as part of their daily work on the wards , and liberalizing legal reform was seen as a threat to the ability of the staff to perform their jobs effectively. The mandates of the reform conflicted with what the staff perceived as the most effective way to deal with problems on the wards. This creat ed a frustrating situation of workplace anomie that staff relieved by endowing with increased social importance the coercive measures of control still available to them.