M.Cur. / The abuse of alcohol has a huge impact on health-related problems worldwide. The incidence rate of alcohol abuse in South Africa is on the increase according to Van Niekerk (2001:325). Alcohol dependency causes dysfunction in families resulting in problems such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, impaired relationships and poor parenting (Prest & Protinsky 1993:352). The family system becomes dysfunctional by organising itself in a way which enables and protects the alcohol dependant’s drinking habits. This phenomenon is called “ co-dependency”. The family is ignorant of the problem and becomes isolated. The concept “co-dependency” has been used since the late 1970’s to describe the problems affecting the spouse of the alcoholic and later to include the children. Co-dependency is characterised by features such as low self-esteem, poor identity formation, overuse of denial and the urge to control others. The co-dependant’s involvement with others in order to care and control leads to mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse. It becomes a vicious cycle difficult to escape from. Health care professionals may be unaware of the underlying family problems when the co-dependant seeks help for physical and mental illness, resulting in the complexity of the problem not being addressed. Psychiatric nurses need guidelines to facilitate the mental health of the co-dependant spouse. The first goal of this study was to explore and describe the lived experience of the co-dependant spouse. The second goal was to develop guidelines for the psychiatric nurse to facilitate the mental health of the co-dependant spouse. The theoretical framework of the Theory for Health Promotion in Nursing by the Department of Nursing of the Rand Afrikaans University (2002:2-7) was used as point of departure in conducting this research. The researcher followed a functional approach according to the Botes model for nursing research (RAU, 2002:8-13). An explorative, descriptive, contextual and qualitative research design was used for this study (Babbie & Mouton, 2001:79-81). In-depth semi-structured phenomenological interviews were conducted with participants meeting the criteria for inclusion. Purposive sampling was used (Burns & Grove 1997:307). A pilot study was conducted. To ensure trustworthiness, the researcher made use of Guba’s model (Lincoln & Guba 1985: 290-300). The researcher used Tesch’s approach (Poggenpoel in De Vos, 1998:343) to transcribe the recorded interviews and to analyse the data gathered from the interviews. A literature control was conducted to re-contextualise the results within the literature. The researcher came to the conclusion that the total being of the co-dependant is dismantled by the effect of the addictive process. It was found that the ripple effect of co-dependency is far reaching, causing dysfunction of the family structure and mental health problems of the individual family members. In order to break the vicious cycle of addiction, simultaneous intervention at different levels of the addiction process was required. Therefore co-dependency should be dealt with as part of a bigger process by the psychiatric nurse when intervening. Guidelines were developed for the psychiatric nurse in order to facilitate the mental health of the co-dependant in a holistic manner. Conclusions were drawn, limitations of the research were highlighted and recommendations were made for the nursing practice, nursing education and nursing research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:14711 |
| Date | 18 November 2008 |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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