Magister Curationis - MCur / The current debate on knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of medical staff and the broader community towards mentally ill patients across the world is also quite extensive in South Africa. The literature on the subject matter demonstrates poor knowledge of mental illness in the general population and also indicates that people often have stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness. However, while most studies have explored the attitudes, perceptions and behaviour towards mentally ill patients with respect to various staff categories such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologist and the community globally and particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, few studies have extended the analysis to include general assistants. Moreover, little research has been carried out on the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards mental illness and mentally ill patients of non-medical staff such as general assistants, who on a daily basis spend time with mentally health care users, ensuring hygiene in psychiatric hospitals in South Africa. This study intended to fill the gap by using a quantitative, descriptive approach encompassing a cross-sectional survey design to identify the level of basic mental health knowledge and determine attitudes and perceptions of general assistants towards mental illness and mentally ill patients in four government funded psychiatric hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa. A random sample of 124 was selected from the general assistants of the four psychiatric hospitals in Cape Town. The results established that the majority of General Assistants (75.6%) in all four psychiatric hospitals demonstrated fair basic mental health knowledge pertaining to mental illness and positive attitudes and perceptions towards mentally ill patients. Although the attitudes and perceptions are mostly positive, item analysis revealed that there are disparities in the results. One third of the general assistants find it stressful to work with mentally ill people. Others displayed frustration (30,1% ), mistrust (52%) and fear(12%). In addition, 82.9% of the general assistants like working with mentally ill people and the majority of the general assistants are comfortable working with mentally ill patients. The recommendation is that basic mental health awareness programmes or in-service training should be implemented for general assistants especially newly appointed general assistants to improve the knowledge and understanding, attitudes and perceptions of general assistants and to reduce fear and negative perceptions and attitudes in order to enhance positive patient experiences.

Esta dissertação aborda a escrita enquanto experiência em que vida e pensamento se engendram mutuamente. Integra o grupo de pesquisa “Potência Clínica das Memórias da Loucura”, que se dá junto à Oficina de Criatividade do Hospital Psiquiátrico São Pedro, e que se ocupa, em parte, com a escrita da vida de alguns internos. Escreve-se, portanto, através da aproximação com certa vida em risco e arriscada, que lança linhas de criação e sobrevivência de si em um mundo que está, para todos os efeitos, arrematado. Assim, a escrita traça contornos no encontro com a linguagem em desrazão, a qual busca, sem encontrar, um ponto de ancoragem. É na afirmação de uma diferença que está o espaço de um percurso de experimentação. / This thesis approaches the writing as an experience in which life and thought engender themselves mutually. It integrates the research group “Clinical Potency of the Memories of Madness”, which happens along with the Creativity Workshop of the Psychiatric Hospital São Pedro, working, in part, with the writing of the life of some patients. It is written, therefore, by an approach to a certain risky and at stake life, which launches lines of creation and survival of oneself in a world that is, for all intents and purposes, finished. Therefore, the thesis draws borders when meeting with the language in unreason, which seeks, without finding, an anchor point. It is in the affirmation of a difference that is the space of a journey of experimentation.

Esta dissertação aborda a escrita enquanto experiência em que vida e pensamento se engendram mutuamente. Integra o grupo de pesquisa “Potência Clínica das Memórias da Loucura”, que se dá junto à Oficina de Criatividade do Hospital Psiquiátrico São Pedro, e que se ocupa, em parte, com a escrita da vida de alguns internos. Escreve-se, portanto, através da aproximação com certa vida em risco e arriscada, que lança linhas de criação e sobrevivência de si em um mundo que está, para todos os efeitos, arrematado. Assim, a escrita traça contornos no encontro com a linguagem em desrazão, a qual busca, sem encontrar, um ponto de ancoragem. É na afirmação de uma diferença que está o espaço de um percurso de experimentação. / This thesis approaches the writing as an experience in which life and thought engender themselves mutually. It integrates the research group “Clinical Potency of the Memories of Madness”, which happens along with the Creativity Workshop of the Psychiatric Hospital São Pedro, working, in part, with the writing of the life of some patients. It is written, therefore, by an approach to a certain risky and at stake life, which launches lines of creation and survival of oneself in a world that is, for all intents and purposes, finished. Therefore, the thesis draws borders when meeting with the language in unreason, which seeks, without finding, an anchor point. It is in the affirmation of a difference that is the space of a journey of experimentation.

Esta dissertação aborda a escrita enquanto experiência em que vida e pensamento se engendram mutuamente. Integra o grupo de pesquisa “Potência Clínica das Memórias da Loucura”, que se dá junto à Oficina de Criatividade do Hospital Psiquiátrico São Pedro, e que se ocupa, em parte, com a escrita da vida de alguns internos. Escreve-se, portanto, através da aproximação com certa vida em risco e arriscada, que lança linhas de criação e sobrevivência de si em um mundo que está, para todos os efeitos, arrematado. Assim, a escrita traça contornos no encontro com a linguagem em desrazão, a qual busca, sem encontrar, um ponto de ancoragem. É na afirmação de uma diferença que está o espaço de um percurso de experimentação. / This thesis approaches the writing as an experience in which life and thought engender themselves mutually. It integrates the research group “Clinical Potency of the Memories of Madness”, which happens along with the Creativity Workshop of the Psychiatric Hospital São Pedro, working, in part, with the writing of the life of some patients. It is written, therefore, by an approach to a certain risky and at stake life, which launches lines of creation and survival of oneself in a world that is, for all intents and purposes, finished. Therefore, the thesis draws borders when meeting with the language in unreason, which seeks, without finding, an anchor point. It is in the affirmation of a difference that is the space of a journey of experimentation.

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Caregivers of people with psychiatric illnesses experience challenges, which contribute significantly to their burden of care and can result in health and mental health problems. The researcher was interested in the lived experiences of caregivers, which resulted in the following research questions: What are the lived experiences of caregivers caring for a co-morbid bi-polar and substance-abuse patient, and what context and situations contribute to the problems? The goal of this research was to explore the experiences of family members caring for relatives admitted in a psychiatric hospital, and the contexts in which these occurred. The objectives were to explore and describe the lived experiences of family members caring for a relative with a co-morbid diagnosis of bi-polar and substance abuse, as well as the situations or contexts in which these experiences occur. These objectives were followed by the last objective of the research, which was to make recommendations to the multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) on services for family members caring for such a relative. A qualitative, phenomenological research approach was used for this study with explorative and descriptive research designs. The population for the study comprised families in the Western Cape caring for female relatives admitted to a psychiatric hospital with co-morbid bipolar and substance use disorder. The researcher purposively selected relatives of female in-patients admitted in a female admission ward. Families were chosen whose members were admitted for more than three months. In-depth phenomenological interviews were done with six participants until data saturation was reached. Phenomenological data analysis, focusing on the textural (lived experience) and structural (context in which it was experienced), were followed after data collection. Findings comprised a composite description of the phenomena of both textural and structural description. The findings of this research resulted in conclusions and recommendations for MDTs and social work on interventions for family members caring for a family member with this mental condition. Findings from this study conclude what was found in the literature regarding challenges in the system leads to caregivers feeling burdened with their mentally ill relative, and that resources and support are lacking in communities. This led to recommendations aiming at MDTs, government and social workers working in institutions, to align with community social workers in order to strengthen working relationships with the aim of providing the necessary support services to families caring for mentally ill relatives. Future research suggestions are also aimed at supporting families caring for patients with a mental illness for which reasons for re-admissions will be assessed and evaluated.

No description available.

This study examines the workings of the ground rules which make up the framework of psychotherapy, in an institutional context, by analysing transcripts of twelve audio taped sessions of therapy conducted in a psychiatric hospital. The breaks in the ground rules of the sessions are noted and the patients' responses to these breaks are analysed using Langs's (1982, 1988) method for decoding patients' material, suitably modified for use as a hermeneutic research method. Although all of the ground rules are broken in the institutional context, only one of the ten ground rules appears to be essentially affected by this particular institutional context. Other ground rules are broken out of choice of technique or through error. The institutional context has a structural impact only on the ground rule requiring a one to one relationship with privacy and confidentiality and this ground rule is transgressed in a number of ways in all twelve sessions examined in this study. However the patients' responses to this breach only occur in ways predicted by communicative theory when the break in the ground rule involves actual entry into the therapy space by another person. Other contraventions to this ground rule that do not involve such an entry do not elicit the predicted patient responses. The many other ground rule breaks occurring in the institutional context evoke the predicted responses in the patients' material. In the study, no therapist interventions are found to comply with the communicative therapy requirements for sound interventions; concomitantly it was found that no therapist interventions receive the required derivative validation. The results indicate that it is possible to conduct therapy of a substantially secure frame variety in this institutional context with minimum effort on the part of therapists and given proper training and supervision of therapists in the techniques of communicative psychotherapy. Furthermore the results lend weight to the importance of the communicative methodology for listening to patients' material in psychotherapy in an institutional context. However, further rigorous study of competently performed therapy, executed within the context of a secure frame within an institutional context, is needed in order to demonstrate the benefits of the communicative psychotherapy interventions and interpretations in this context.

The purpose of this study is to make a comparative survey of recreational programs in both federal and state mental institutions in Texas. The objective, in general, is to determine which of the two types of mental institutions makes available to patients the most well-rounded program of recreation, and to determine wherein recreational facilities and opportunities in both types of institutions may be improved.

Magister Curationis - MCur / Studies have shown that no great emphasis has been put on hand washing practices in psychiatric health facilities, despite the fact that nosocomial infection outbreaks have been reported for decades. Most studies have focused on hand washing practices among general health personnel; however, little is known about hand washing practices among nurses working at psychiatric hospitals.

No description available.