Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

Thesis (D.N.S.)--Boston University

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D.Cur. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Cur. (Nursing Sciences) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Cur. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Cur. / Nursing is a profession involving the care of people. Nursing is a goal directed process in which the primary objective is to develop a relationship between the care provider (nurse) and the care receiver (patient) for the purpose of maintaining a level of functioning (Kreigh & Perko, 1979:10). Psychiatric nursing is defined as specialised field within the practice of nursing. The focus of psychiatric nursing is both corrective and preventative. It is corrective in that it provides individuals, families or groups, who are experiencing various degrees of emotional or psycho-social disequilibrium with an opportunity to engage in a therapeutic interactional process. It is preventative in that it endeavours through the educative aspect of the interpersonal process and role model exemplification, to preserve equilibrium and promote optimum mental health (Kreigh &Perko, 1979:7).One of the concepts that the psychiatric nurse believes is important in developing criteria for care is that behaviour has meaning. In this study, behaviour is what the youth says and does. Meaning is defined as the way in which young people attempt to convey the expression of their innermost feelings. Harris and Radaelli, 2007 state that the perception of people constitute the reality of daily life, hence what the youth says and does, is in response to perceived external and internal stimuli.

M.Cur. / Nursing is a stressful activity and therefore it is necessary for nurses to develope effective coping mechanisms, or to strengthen existing ones in a healthy manner, in order to be capable of dealing with stress, arising from their personal and professional lives. It is however, not soley stress itself which predisposes nurses to fatigue (physical, psychological and emotional exhaustion) but rather the chronic nature and excessive amount of stressors which place excessive demands on the energy resources and coping mechanisms of nurses resulting in the ineffective handling of stress which in turn leads to the eventual development of fatigue. The detrimental results of this experience are however not confined to the nurse herself, but extends further to the patient and the organization. Thus, if fatigue is not controlled or dealt with, all parties and organizations concerned could suffer. This research covers the accompaniment function of the psychiatric nurse specialist in the prevention of fatigue in psychiatric nurses by strengthening their mental preparedness. As a possible solution to the experience of fatigue, a structured, accompanied program of three days duration was offered to a group of psychiatric nurses. This group was identified as the experimental group. The control group was only provided with literature giving essential data concerning fatigue. This was done in order to limit the Hawthorne effect of this research. The Solomon four group design was followed in order to eliminate influences on the subjects resulting from the completion of the self-evaluation scale as pre-test. In order to determine the level of fatigue experienced by psychiatric nurses, half/Of / the experimental group were tested before and after the three day structured accompanied program was presented, by means of the self-evaluation scale. The second half of the group were tested once only after the structured accompanied program was held by means of the same scale. The control group was divided and dealt with in the same way except that no structured accompanied program was presented to this group...

M.Cur. (Psychiatric Nursing) / Social situations make a person vulnerable to mental illness. These situations include circumstances such as poverty, an unstable family and inadequate nutrition. A combination of these circumstances predisposes exposed people to developing unhealthy ways of coping with stress. '. Violence can be seen as a way of managing stress, but also as a factor causing stress. An example of unhealthy ways of stress management in the current South African society is the violence that lends to unrest which has affected different communities in a short space of time. There does not seem to be much information in texts about the. effects of violence, and not enough studies have yet been done to gain enough insight into this field, since it has only recently drawn the attention of health professionals. As a result, the development of sound interventive measures in this' regard to support the communities exposed to violence, has been neglected. The aim of this study is to explore the experience of a community exposed to violence and to compile guidelines for support action for the exposed community studied. An exploratory contextual study was undertaken with the purpose of generating meaning regarding the experience of a 'community characterised by violence. . The phenomenological method of interviewing was used to gather data. The target population consisted of a township community of 228000. Ten respondents were interviewed in total, selected by the convenience purposive sampling method through intermediaries. The interviews were recorded on tape and later transcribed verbatim. Data was analysed by the method of content analysis. The results were centred on the respondents' and their families' experiences of violence since March 1990. The results indicated four types of experiences for all people exposed to violence: psychological, spiritual, physical and behaviourial experiences. The experiences of interactions with the internal environment (psychological, spiritual and physical experiences), were predominantly negative, except for only two positive spiritual experiences (improvements in the people's faith and positive experiences in both environments brought about new insights, that is, that even though most of their internal environment and part of their external environment is bleak and hopeless, the victims of violence still have the will to survive and live a normal life like other people. This positive attitude then, supplies the psychiatric nurse with a point of entry to bring about positive change that acts as a support for the community exposed to violence.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University