GMCH Chandigarh - 2019
Mental Health Nursing
Medium
Nurse can minimize agitation in a disturbed client by?
Appeared in: GMCH Chandigarh - 2019
Explanation
- The core strategy for managing agitation is to reduce environmental stimuli to prevent over-arousal and escalation.
- Limiting interactions to those that are essential, brief, and calm helps lower the client's anxiety and fear.
- This approach is a key component of milieu management, creating a therapeutic and low-stimulation environment.
- It respects the client's need for personal space and helps them regain a sense of control in a non-threatening manner.
Why Other Options Were Wrong
- Option A: Increasing stimulation is contraindicated as it directly exacerbates agitation by overwhelming the client's ability to cope with sensory input.
- Option C: During an acute episode of agitation, the client's ability to process sensory information is impaired. The priority is to decrease all forms of sensory input, not increase it.
- Option D: Constant contact can be perceived as threatening and intrusive, violating the client's personal space and increasing feelings of being trapped or controlled, which can escalate agitation.
Related Visual
Clinical Relevance
- Nursing practice connection: Use the key finding related to Management of Agitation in Psychiatric Nursing to guide bedside assessment, documentation, and the next nursing action.
- A nurse's first action when faced with an agitated client should be to assess the environment and immediately work to reduce stimuli.
- This principle applies across various settings, including psychiatric units, emergency departments, and medical floors where clients may experience delirium or dementia.
- Failure to manage the environment can lead to the need for more restrictive interventions like chemical or physical restraints, which carry significant risks for the client.
How to Approach the Question
- First, identify the core goal of the question: to 'minimize agitation' in a 'disturbed client'. This points to de-escalation and environmental management.
- Analyze the underlying principle. Agitation is a state of hyper-arousal. Therefore, interventions should aim to decrease arousal, not increase it.
- Evaluate each option against this principle.
- Option A (Increasing stimulation) and Option D (Ensuring constant contact) both increase environmental and social stimulation. Eliminate them.
- Option C (Increasing sensory perception) is also a form of increasing input. Eliminate it.
- Option B (Limiting unnecessary interaction) is the only option that focuses on reducing stimulation. This makes it the most logical and therapeutic choice.
Concept Tested & Keywords
- Concept Tested: Management of Agitation in Psychiatric Nursing
- Stem keywords: minimize agitation, disturbed client, nurse
- Lead-in keywords: minimize
Question ID
QLh9bWqtLEPGChtqVYe6L2
Reference Book
E6 Robert Boland, Marcia L. Verduin - Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Text of Psychiatry-Wolters Kluwer Health (2024) (pp 1-16525 of 16525) pp. 8842-8844, 8843-8845
Practise the full GMCH Chandigarh - 2019
Attempt every question from this paper in a timed mock, then review the full solution for each one.
More Psychiatric Emergencies Questions
- Priority action of patient agitation management?
- A patient has tried to commit suicide with drug overdose. Which of the situation depicts that the patient has high risk of suicide?
- Patient is taking haloperidol and at home Patient is not able to sit quietly, during the clinic visit Patient has the urge to walk. What is suffering…
- A client is admitted to the emergency room with symptoms of delirium tremens. After admitting the client to a private room, the priority nursing inte…
- A 38-year-old female client with a history of chronic schizophrenia, paranoid type, is currently an outpatient at the local mental health and mental…
- Which of the following would be a priority nursing intervention for a patient who has suicidal behaviour?
- Which of the following is the most lethal method of Suicide?
- During ward rounds, you find that a 24-year-old patient with mania is very abusive and aggressive; there is imminent danger of his becoming physicall…
- A patient says to a nurse, "Everyone would be better off if I wasn't alive." Which nursing diagnosis would be made based on this statement?
- A patient receiving haloperidol for schizophrenia reports an inner feeling of motor restlessness, stating, "I can't stop moving my legs, I feel like…
More GMCH Chandigarh - 2019 Questions
- Arrange the following events in the order of their occurrence in panic circle? I. Apprehension or worry II. Body sensations III. Perceived threat IV.…
- While receiving blood transfusion the patient develops chills and headache. What should be the nurse's initial action?
- Choose the most therapeutic response to Mr. Shyam's question: "Am I going to die?"
- Which of the following would be a common indication of infiltration of a peripheral intravenous infusion?
- Ms. Babita is in the emergency room after being involved in a traffic accident. What would be an early sign of hemorrhagic shock?
- Ms. Anita asks the nurse when she can start eating after surgery. What is the most appropriate response by the nurse?
- When caring for an infant during cardiac arrest, which pulse must be palpated to determine cardiac function?
- The evidence to assert, whether or not, experimental treatment/condition has made the difference refers to?
- Which nursing theorist believes that most patients are capable of performing self care?
- What is the term used for normal respiratory rhythm and depth in a client?