No scrubs allowed in psych?

[Jedi of Zen]

I have noticed that among the staff at the psych unit of the hospital that I work at, at least from what little exposure I've had, they almost never seem to wear scrubs. Instead, they always wear dress clothes.

I'm a student, getting ready to do my psych clinical, and our instructions at school have been not to wear our regular student uniform to this clinical (which basically resembles scrubs); instead, we're supposed to wear conservative dress clothes. This is true for all of the different psych facilities that our class is doing clinicals at.

I'm just wondering - is there a reason for the (apparently) no-scrubs rule? Is this a common policy in psych units? I have no problem with wearing dress clothes; I'm simply curious.

Thanks!

[ruralnurs]

Interesting thread! I was a psych nurse in a state hospital for just over 5 years. The dress code was pretty much whatever you wanted, some wore scrubs and some did not, only nurses though. I can see both sides as far as trying to make it like the person's home and letting them know we are nurses. I always wore scrubs because I am proud to be a nurse and the patients knew I was a nurse. We all know that there are those people that don't wear name tags and some pateints would be frightened the first fews days and they always knew I was a staff memeber and they could ask me to meet needs.

We know that nurses are almost always considered the most trusted of professionals so I don't agree the scrubs make them uncomfortable. Yes I know that we nurses make decisions they didn't like, but for the most part they always knew I was their liason and advocate. They know they are in a hospital regardless of what we wear.

Another issue that happened just after I left (I still keep in touch with many co-worker friends). There was a big riot on the admission unit. There were several very ill people being manipulated by some of those with severe behavior disorders and things got very dangerous. The police were called and they could not tell who was staff and who were pateints right away. Everything was a blur and more people got hurt because it was hard to tell who was who. So now the hospital purchased scrub tops (either the regular ones or the snap up kind) and polo shirts that are all certain colors and have the hospital logo on it. If a person is not wearing one they are sent home. It became a safety issue. There are about 25-30 pateints on a unit and there are 5 units in the hospital.

[S.N. Visit, BSN, RN]

I'm in a small geri-psych unit and T.G, we can wear scrubs if we want. I certainly don't want BM, food, sputum or anything else thrown on my good clothes....ugh. When I did my psych rotation in nsg school, we wore dress pants and nice shirt & shoes. We were at the V.A. Hospital at that time. I was on the outpatient unit so scrubs were not needed there. We were told to wear casual clothes d/t the instutionalization fear.