Abstract
D.Cur.
South Africa is currently undergoing radical transformational changes in all facets of its society. This is an era immediately following the first democratic elections in the country. The new Government, the Government of National Unity (GNU) which is dominated by the African National Congress (ANC), has introduced what is known as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)(ANC, 1994), which seeks to redress disparities of the past. This programme has significant social, political and economical implications for the South African community. It proposes that statutory bodies and institutions should be rationalized and restructured to reflect the diversity of the South African people and should be better able to promote and protect the standards of health care and training. It aims to, inter alia, promote mental health and to increase the accessibility, quality and quantity of mental health support and counselling services. In line with this goal and based on problems that arise because of anxieties and fears that are inherent in change, the mental health of nurse educators and nursing students of a selected nursing college was investigated utilizing a qualitative, theory – generative design which is exploratory, descriptive and contextual in nature. The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase 1, in-depth phenomenological interviews were conducted individually with ten nurse educators and nine nursing students to explore and describe their experience of interaction with one another. Follow-up interviews were also conducted with some of
the participants. Data was analysed using Tesch's method. Based on the results of the analysis, the major concept, understanding was identified as the essence of a model for constructive nurse educator - student interaction envisaged. In Phase 2, a theory -generative design was utilized to develop a constructive nurse educator - student interaction model, founded on a mental health approach. The identified concept was examined in existing writings to determine essential criteria of
the concept. In addition, a model case was written in which the concept was constructed to the best of the researcher's understanding. Essential criteria of the concept were identified and a concept map was drawn to depict the essential criteria in relation to each other. The related concepts were identified and portrayed in a structural form. The visual model depicts nurse educators and nursing students who function as a family, as the recipients of activity, and the advanced psychiatric nurse practitioner, who facilitates their interaction, as the agent. By utilizing the deductive reasoning strategy, relationship statements were inferred from the model. Guidelines were described for the advanced psychiatric nurse practitioner with regard to all three phases, namely, the Interaction Initiation Phase, the Interaction Cohesiveness Phase and the Interaction Dissolution Phase, in terms of objectives, strategies and proposed activities.