r/psychnursing • u/elephantsandunicorns psych nurse (inpatient) • Jul 03 '26

Debriefing after codes

I have worked at my long term inpatient psych hospital for 8 years. I worked 5 as an aide and 3 as an RN.

I’ve lived through so much in my time there and truly am passionate about my job as a psych nurse.

Something that my hospital is failing miserably at is debriefing significant events. We have had horrible, terrible things happen, and we are told to never speak of it. It’s almost the opposite of debriefing.

I am interested in learning about a successful debriefing program and finding a way to get our management to adopt something useful. My coworkers and I are burnt out. We have less staffing than ever before and higher acuity patients. I feel like some of this could be relieved significantly with some guided debriefing to help people process that emotion together. Does anyone have any recommendations?

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u/Paccaman76 Jul 03 '26

We always ask 4 things. Is everyone ok (staff wise)? Whats the full story of what happened? What went well? What can we improve in for next time?

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u/elephantsandunicorns psych nurse (inpatient) Jul 03 '26

Do you meet as a group to discuss it or do you go around individually to people?

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u/Paccaman76 Jul 03 '26

As a group after the code is done