Teaching patients self care: a critical aspect of psychiatric discharge planning.

This article has dealt with selected issues in patient education that involves teaching patients self care in the mental health delivery system. It has presented several predischarge teaching techniques that have been used in a research study by the first author and other strategies that have been found to be effective in both authors' clinical practice. There are many other areas in need of systematic investigation related to self-care skills. The first author's study is one of very few conducted by psychiatric nurses to document effective self-care treatment techniques (Figure). We hope that other clinicians and researchers will become interested in this area and add to the knowledge base of self care in the field of psychiatric-mental health nursing.