Providing Nursing Care to Patients with Mental Disorders Based on King's Goal Attainment Theory: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Background: Failure in treatment plans is very common in patients with mental disorders due to the patient's non-adherence to treatment, which has serious effects on public health and imposes additional costs on the community. Thus, patient-centered methods can be used to empower patients to improve their mental health care. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the effect of King's patient-centered nursing as a goal-attainment process in patients with mental disorders to improve interpersonal, personal, and social systems and adaptive responses in these patients. Methods: A quasi-experimental single-group study with a pre-test/post-test design was conducted on 34 patients with mental disorders. The patients were selected using convenience sampling from patients admitted to psychiatric centers in Tehran in 2022. First, the socio-demographic information questionnaire was completed for all patients. Then, an intervention program designed based on King's goal attainment process was implemented for the patients: (1) Nursing assessment (identification of the patient's needs and problems according to the mutual understanding between the patient and the nurse and based on three personal, interpersonal, and social systems using King's standard checklist), (2) Planning with the participation of the patient (setting at least 3 goals, prioritizing the goals, and formulating a care plan for each goal), (3) Interventions (interactive sessions and presentation of educational content), and (4) Evaluation (determining the level of patient's adaptive responses using the same checklist). Data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including the paired samples t-test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with SPSS-26 software. Results: Thirty patients with an average age of 39.23 ± 6.33 were examined in this study. The initial assessment showed that the main problem faced by the patients was related to the interpersonal system (communication and interaction), followed by the personal system (self-perception) and social system (control). The post-intervention evaluation showed that the patients scored higher in all three personal, interpersonal, and social systems, and there was a statistically significant difference in their scores for these systems (P < 0.001). Moreover, socio-demographic variables had no significant effect on the patients' adaptive responses (P > 0.05). Conclusions: In line with King's theory, the present study showed the benefits of patient-centered care protocols, such as interpersonal relationship development, improvement of self-perception, and patients' interactive performance. Ultimately, this theory can lead to improving the patient's health status and the hospital's quality indicators. Therefore, nurses can enhance the effectiveness of nursing care, especially in psychiatric departments, using patient-centered care protocols based on King's theory.