Mindfulness, rooted in religious traditions and now part of secular discourse, is increasingly studied for therapeutic use in healthcare, especially mental health. The paper argues that mindfulness presupposes individuals can choose what to attend to and how to act. For psychiatric nurses, understanding mindfulness aids cross-cultural awareness and highlights how personal inattention may harm care. As a life skill, mindfulness supports mental health promotion. The paper examines mindfulness from multiple angles, using the Buddhist perspective as a continuous reference to compare with secular views, without claiming exhaustive coverage.
A systematic review of the literature found that little is known about the effects of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) on people with severe mental illness (SMI). Based on 12 case reports, 1 cross-sectional survey, and 1 qualitative study involving mostly males aged 20–35, the most commonly reported effects were psychotic symptoms—sometimes novel in form and content—and significant behavioral changes such as agitation, aggression, and violence. Vital signs like blood pressure, pulse rate, and temperature were also commonly affected. Almost nothing is known about long-term consequences, and generalizability is limited due to reliance on case studies.
Mental health nursing students and their lecturers struggle to distinguish between a person's genuine religious or cultural beliefs and psychopathological symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations. Based on ethnographic interviews and focus groups with 36 second- and third-year students and seven lecturers, four key challenges emerged: telling delusions from religious belief, telling hallucinations from religious experience, understanding the clinical consequences of misjudgment, and applying religion-specific knowledge. Misinterpreting religious expression as pathology risks inaccurate clinical assessments. The authors suggest that critical incident analysis could help nurses recognize the religious dimensions of mental distress and improve the accuracy and person-centeredness of assessments.