The community mental health nurse working on a task force to ...

[mikaylakyoung]

The community mental health nurse working on a task force to reduce the number of mentally ill individuals incarcerated in the local jail could advocate for a cost-effective measure such as:
 
  1. Providing education about behaviors associated with mental illness to law en-forcement officers
  2. Providing a new homeless shelter for mentally ill persons that is staffed by mental health nurses
  3. Advocating that the courts apply commitment criteria uniformly
  4. A public information campaign to make people aware of jail conditions

Question 2

A client with severe and persistent mental illness is homeless. He tells the nurse at the mental health outpatient clinic that he had to leave his mother's house because she picked at me all the time.
 
  He now stays in the park, eats at a soup kitchen, and washes in a gas station bathroom. He states he isn't hearing voices but he needs more pills. The nurse can assess that his homelessness is primarily related to:
  1. Lack of family support
  2. Failure to perform ADLs
  3. Medication noncompliance
  4. Exacerbation of psychotic symptoms

[CourtneyCNorton]

Answer to Question 1

ANS: 1
Helping law enforcement officers recognize that behaviors associated with mental illness require treatment rather than incarceration could reduce the numbers of persons who are charged with minor crimes. 2. This would not be a cost-effective solution. 3. Data are not available to suggest inequities. 4. Data are not available to suggest that jail conditions are poor.

Answer to Question 2

ANS: 1
Lack of family support is evident in the client's perception that his mother picked at him. Hos-tile overinvolvement is as much lack of support as not having any family or interested individu-als. The other options are not reasons for homelessness because he is performing ADLs to the best of his ability, he is taking medication, and his symptoms seem under control.