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...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:4305 |
| Date | 12 March 2014 |
| Creators | Greeff, Minrie |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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