Sunday Oluwafemi Omoniyi^{1, 2,}, Danjuma Aliyu³, Ibrahim Taiwo Adeleke^{2, 4}, Afam Ndu⁵, Mary Kakamission Paul¹

Background: Mental health disorders continue to increase globally and there is a need to care for patients with mental health disorders. In Nigeria, there is continuing advocacy for community mental health practice, largely due to small number of health facilities and mental health professionals. Aim: To determine the perceptions of Nigerian mental health nurses towards community mental health nursing practice in Nigeria. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study of all Nigerian mental health nurses who attended the 2015 Annual National Scientific Conference of Association of Psychiatric Nurses of Nigeria (APNON) held at Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Baranawa Kaduna, Kaduna State between Monday 27th and Friday 31st July 2015 was undertaken. A structured questionnaire developed by the authors from relevant literature on community mental health nursing practice was used for data collection. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 16.0 for windows to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis was computed on dependent and independent variables. Results: This study involved 135 Nigerian mental health nurses among the conference attendees who gave consent to participate in this study. More than half (55%) of participants were female and the overall participants had dual nursing certificates with a mean year of experience of 11.1±7 years. A good number (88%) of the Nigerian mental health nurses declared that, the practice of community mental health nursing is very important to the mental health nurse and as well as the patients. Nearly all(99%)of the participants agreed that creating annex hospitals and posting mental health nurses to the communities will significantly reduce the problem of institutionalizing mental health care and nearly six in every ten (59%) of them reported that they did not practice community psychiatry nursing at their various place of work. Major factors hindering the practice of community mental health are lack of substantive policy 62%, workload 48%, and resistance from mental health nurses due to limited staffing 45%. Conclusion: In spite of the acknowledged, important of CMH practice to nursing profession and the patients, most the mental health nurses submitted that they were not practicing it at their various place of work. However, there is urgent need to explore ways to stimulate all levels of government (and their partners) to initiate or activate policies in favour of community mental health is paramount.

community mental health, nursing practice, mental health nurses, psychiatric nurses, institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, perspectives, Nigeria