Abstract
D.Cur.
The impressive growth in the extent and range of psychiatric services provided by general
hospitals in South Africa, creates stress among nurses employed in these settings which
manifests its self in the negative attitudes displayed towards mentally ill people, refusal of
dual diagnosis patients transferred from medical surgical units and poor intra-institutional
relationships between nurses in medical-surgical units and those who are in the psychiatric
unit.
This has led to the research study aimed at describing a model for support to assist general
hospital nurses mobilize appropriate resources in the process of nursing mentally ill people.
The research methodology followed the research model in nursing proposed by Botes (1995).
A theory generative, qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual design was followed.
The research methods were dealt with in four steps of theory generation in the following
manner:
Step 1: Concept analysis: This step was dealt with in two phases which are concept
identification and concept definition. During concept identification, a qualitative research
strategy which is explorative, descriptive and contextual was used. This was attained through
field research conducted in an urban general hospital. A sample of twelve professional was
selected from a population of 800 professional nurses employed in a general hospital using
a purposive sampling technique. This sample size was determined by saturation of data in
themes. Both semi-structured individual phenomenological interviews and observations were
used as methods of data collection. The field work was conducted without any preset
theoretical framework of reference by using "bracketing" and "intuiting". Giorgi's (1986)
method of descriptive data analysis was used. After data analysis, the results were reflected
within the Nursing for the Whole Person Theory.
Four themes emerged from the results of the study which were:1) the experience with the
perception of the mentally ill people, 2) the experience with interpersonal communication
patterns, 3) nurses' experience of violence and lastly, 4) the experience of inappropriate
patient behaviours. It became clear that the experience of nursing mentally ill people was
negative and affected the social, psychological and the physical dimensions of nurses. The
results were validated through literature control. The major concept of model was identified
as "facilitation of communication". The concept was analysed thoroughly by looking at the
dictionary and subject usage. The defining attributes were identified and synthesised through
a definition. The other related concepts were identified and classified using a survey list of
Dickoff, James & Wiedenbach (1968:430).
Step 2: Step 2 dealt with the creation of interrelationship statements between concepts
identified in step 1, so that concepts were able to stand in relation to one another. Step 3:
dealt with the description of the model using strategies proposed Chin & Kramer (1991). Step
4: dealt with the description of guidelines for model operationalization in practice, education
and research. The evaluation of model operationalization will be carried out in future
research. To ensure valid results, a model trustworthiness proposed by Guba (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) was used. The following criteria for trustworthiness was applied in all the steps
of theory generation: truth value, applicability, consistency and neutrality.