I had a patient of mine fall trying to transfer herself to the commode. When asked what happened, her reply was "I was just trying to kill myself". This is a new admit whom I had only met once before. She suffers from end stage liver disease and her ammonia levels are high. She was very confused at the time of the incident and could not even tell me where she was.
On the incident report and in my documentation of it, I went out of my way to point out the fact that she made this comment. Regardless of her mental status or the seriousness of it, I was under the impression that we were obligated to take ALL comments like that seriously.
When I got to work tonight I found a letter from my supervisor asking me why I documented that, and that because I did, she had to go behind me and follow up on it to "cover my butt". I thought by charting she said it I was covering my own butt. She went on to explain that this person has a very dry sense of humor and was only trying to cover up the fact that she felt stupid for falling. I pretty much got yelled at (in letter format) for doing what I thought was the right thing to do.
Was I wrong for documenting this? I feel I was completely in the right. What if she had been serious and I didn't document anything? What if someone else had heard her statement and I didn't follow up on it?
I'm really not sure what my next step should be. Any advice?