"Man låter det rinna av en" - En studie om hur personalen hanterar den rättspsykiatriska arbetsmiljön.

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to examine how staff in the forensic psychiatry care perceives their professional role and their work environment. The study also served to investigate how the ward atmosphere may be affected by the staffs’ different strategies and attitudes. The study is based on seven semi-structured interviews conducted at two different psychiatric hospitals in Sweden. The material is analyzed with Lazarus and Folkmans (1984) theories about stress, appraisal and coping. To get an understanding how the patients may be affected we have used the phenomenon ward atmosphere, which serves to understand a wards personality. The findings shows that the staff use several different coping strategies to cope with stressful, challenging and violent situations and events. The study shows that there are several patient groups that the staff perceives as more challenging to work with. The ward atmosphere appears as an important factor to build strong relationships, which in turn has a direct effect on the results of the treatment. The respondents in this study describe an organization, which hampers the opportunity to form good relationships with the patients.