Looking for psych nurses with experience of wearing uniforms and street clothes.

[jeffthenursern]

Hello!

I am doing an inquiring project for school. I am conducting primary research on the following question, 'What effect would nurses wearing uniforms (instead of 'street clothes') have on patient care in a psychiatric hospital setting?' I am looking for nurses who have experienced changing from street clothes to uniforms, to survey. If you are willing, I would like to send you a questionnaire to fill out in regards to this topic alone. I am also interested in this because my hospital is looking to change to uniforms. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[sharpeimom]

I was a psych nurse for twenty years. We wore street clothes -- docker-style pants or cargo pants in navy or tan with short or long sleeved polo shirts. Our first names, the hospital's name, and title, plus BSN, MSN, etc. Aides wore the same pants but different colored polos.

Is it an online survey?

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

What semester are You?

[SpeeDemonRN]

I have worked inpatient and outpatient. The dress code varied on the inpatient units. Some street clothes only and others were scrubs only.

The interesting part when I worked for a staffing registry full time- the darn company never knew which. If I couldn't find out ahead, I wore scrubs and kept some decent but washable street clothes in the car. Had to run out and change on more than one occasion.

[flpsych]

When I first started in psych 14 years ago we could wear street clothes or scrubs. A few years back when bought out by a large corporation we were asked to go to color coded scrubs (one for techs, one for LPNs, and another for RNs). I was afraid the uniforms would make us less available to the pts but they did not seem to mind. They do however confuse the color codes. I get called a tech all the time and techs gets called nurses. No big deal but let them know that nurses wear particular colors so that they can come to us regarding med issues.

[elkpark]

The move toward scrubs in some psych facilities seems to be related to a general "remedicalizing" of psychiatric settings.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

I've worked places that require street clothes, places where either street clothes or scrubs were ok, and places that required facility log tops with khaki, navy, or black slacks, shorts, or skirts.

I don't think it makes a bit of difference to patients, what we wear, as long as we don't wear white lab coats ("men in the white coats" stigma) or don't wear colors, such as red all over the place, that might trigger altered mental status.

[SoundRN7]

I work in a psych crisis facility and we can wear street clothes or scrubs. I've never noticed it making a difference to the patients one way or another.

[Mish56, BSN, RN]

My hospital went to color coded scrubs about 5 years ago. I spent the 1st 30 years of my career wearing street clothes. I think it makes it harder for the patient to identify their assigned nurse...."I have the blond with the blue scrubs". There are 5 of us..."old or young?"..."I don't know". That being said they do add a nice institutionalized feel we are losing. LOLOLOL So where is your survey??