Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The aim of the study was to develop guidelines for social workers to be spiritually sensitive
in their mental health practice. Spirituality in Namibia is an important part of the culture of
the individuals that are served by social workers, as well as other caring professionals. For
many, spirituality influences how they perceive their world. Spirituality is an important
strength for individuals to manage their life challenges and for Namibians living with mental
illness, spirituality is a source of comfort and strength during the recovery treatment process.
However, the researcher determined that there is scant literature on the conceptualisation and
utilisation of spirituality in the Namibian social work context and specifically among social
work professionals’ practice with mentally-ill patients. Consequently, case studies were
conducted to explore how Namibian social workers understand and utilise spirituality in their
mental health practice, with the aim to develop guidelines for the practice.
The research process was conducted in two phases. Phase one focussed on informationgathering
through a scoping review, as well as two case studies through in-depth individual
interviews. After the completion of the first phase of analysis, the data from the scoping
review and the interviews were shared with the participants for the development of the
guidelines.
Phase two comprised two 1-day workshops for the purpose of developing guidelines for
practice. The draft guidelines developed in the first 1-day workshop were forwarded for
review to African experts in spirituality and social work from the University of the
Witwatersrand and the Nelson Mandela University.
The research participants for both the in-depth individual interviews and the workshops were
social work practitioners who were or had been employed at the two mental health hospitals
in Namibia. A purposive, non-probability sampling method was employed to select the
participants for the research sample.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/7056 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Rukambe, Zeldah U. |
| Contributors | Schenck, Catherina |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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