Background: Several European countries are reforming their mental healthcare program. This implies an increase of pressure on outpatient care and also in Flanders are waiting times long in the outpatient care and patients don’t receive timely care. Hitherto, a nursing consultation in mental health care is a fairly new concept of care.
Aim: To explore mental health care professionals’ point of view on outpatient nursing consultation in mental health care.
Method: An explorative qualitative research with semi-structured interviews was conducted. Fifteen mental health care professionals from different wards were interviewed. A thematic analysis was used.
Results: Three main topics emerged: content, purpose and conditions for nursing consultation. The central topic of consultation should be patients’ quality of life when dealing with a mental illness and how support can be offered. The respondents found that the nurse functions as a mediator and provides continuity by playing an important role in observing and reporting.
Conclusion: The research contributes to identifying the mental healthcare professionals’ view on nursing consultation in outpatient mental health care. The implementation of nursing consultation has to meet several conditions such as the nurse’s competences and training, interprofessional collaboration and organizational concerns e.g. financing and staffing.