Health prevention: a psychoeducational programme

By: Aurélia LAHAYE, Pascale PIZZIO and Jérôme LANGELLIER; nurses at La Roseraie Psychiatry and Medical Psychology Unit (UPPM).

A nurse’s skillset includes the ability to deliver educational and preventive care as part of their role. Education is an integral aspect of nursing care and remains focused on the patient, with their buy-in and involvement. Health education seeks to (HAS 2007):
• Maintain and expand the capacity to live beyond a person’s health problems.
• Support self-care skills, recognising the individual as capable of making decisions and choices.

At La Roseraie Psychiatry and Medical Psychology Unit (UPPM), nurses offer patients a Health Prevention psychoeducational programme, based on WHO^[1] recommendations.

Prevention describes the range of actions, attitudes and behaviours that help to prevent disease. According to WHO: “Prevention is the range of measures that aim to prevent or reduce the number and seriousness of diseases, accidents and disabilities.”
Health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Mental health, meanwhile, is characterised by an absence of mental disorders, good adaptation to the social environment and good tolerance of the stresses of personal and work life.

The aims of the Health Prevention programme are:
• To deliver preventive education on maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
• To prevent the risks of certain practices and/or addictions.
• To help patients think about consumption or behaviours that are harmful to health.
• To improve quality of life.
• To promote a therapeutic alliance^[2]

The therapeutic techniques used include questionnaires and self-assessment grids based on the Socrates method (maieutics).
(The term maieutics, when used in lay terms, broadly encompasses forms of questioning that aim to help individuals put into words things that they have difficulty expressing or feeling, or things that they find hard to recognise (emotions, desires, wants, motivation). © Psychology.
It is used in combination with the empathy techniques developed by Carl Rogers, focused on affect (active listening or sympathetic listening).

Other methods used include semi-structured interviews, reformulation techniques and motivational interviews, active listening, and a therapeutic relationship based on trust, support, a lack of judgement, etc.

The establishment of a therapeutic alliance is necessary for the programme to work well.
Supporting patients means having a proactive, appropriate offering which takes account of their difficulties (cognitive deficit, lack of insight^[3], etc.). This workshop can enable patients to engage in a process of change.

The Health Prevention programme delivered at La Roseraie UPPM is part of an approach that sees psychoeducation as a comprehensive, evolving process that supports patients at every stage of their care.

More recently, in light of the current health situation, the multidisciplinary team has also incorporated COVID-19 prevention, notably raising awareness about barrier measures and vaccination.

[1] World Health Organization.
[2] Therapeutic alliance: mutual collaboration between the patient and the nurse.
[3] Insight: ability to perceive or understand.