In Australia, nursing is a high-growth occupation. In part, this is due to the
population’s increasing age, as well as its quantity of rural residents. National statistics
show heightened ‘rurality’, sociologically understood as the degree to which an area is
more rural than urban, heightens health care needs. This includes the need for mental
health care services. Rural and remote Australia has fewer specialists, worse health care
access and poses greater socioeconomic and geographical challenges, such as longer
commutes and waiting lists for services, and greater environmental risk exposure, than
urban Australia. Mental health nurses, therefore, are an invaluable resource whose skills
and services supplement, and often replace, service gaps in health care provision in
disadvantaged communities. Living and working in rural and remote communities,
however, pose unique challenges. As individual employees, mental health nurses tend to
struggle to achieve workplace satisfaction in environments challenged by systemic and
demographic changes and inadequacies. Historical changes in the training and delivery
of mental health nursing warrant in-depth exploration to better understand how socioenvironmental
context may impact its needs and future success. This chapter
commences the task by providing primary-collected focus group data collected in
community and in-patient settings in rural New South Wales, Australia. By using a
sociological lens, a qualitative, thematic analysis offers empirically-grounded insights
into the challenges and perceptions mental health nurses face as healthcare providers.
Findings will benefit both local and global audiences wishing to commence social
change. Specifically, it may interest existing and future researchers and practitioners
interested in healthcare delivery, occupational satisfaction or rural communities, as well
as those broadly questioning how the dynamics of power, status and control affect the
well-being of people and places.
Keywords: Mental health nursing, sociology of work, rural health, power, social
change.
