Abstract
D.Cur.
In South Africa, the number of mental health care users in mental health
institutions increases on daily basis. Most mental health care users are young,
and the reasons for their admission are aggression and violent behaviours. This
is supported by the study by Poggenpoel (2008:1), which found that there is
great anger in schools in South Africa. Loots and Louw (2012:1) assert that the
historical and contemporary social environments of South Africa have particular
relevancy to the increase in aggression and violence. Most of these individuals
who display aggression and violent behaviours commit serious criminal offences,
and some of them end up being admitted to psychiatric institutions in forensic
units, for care, treatment and rehabilitation. In almost all psychiatric institutions in
South Africa, forensic units are full and a lot of mental health care users are
cared for in prisons due to this lack of space.
The mental health care users in forensic units are seldom discharged, as most of
their families seem unwilling to have them back in their homes, and they end up
being long-term mental health care users. Efforts are taken to contact families of
mental health care users in forensic units, but family members fail to turn up for
various reasons. This state of affairs tends to frustrate mental health care users
in forensic units, and as a result, they quite often display hostility towards nurses
who are caring for them, and they do so when it is least expected.
This current study is based on the researcher’s previous study on the
“Psychiatric nurses’ experience of hostile behaviour by mental health care users
in a forensic unit” (Tema, 2010:33-46). The findings of the study revealed that
psychiatric nurses in a forensic unit were distressed, and they needed to be
assisted to have control and manage hostility in the forensic unit in a constructive
manner.
The purpose of this study was to develop a model to facilitate the mental health
of the psychiatric nurses in a forensic unit to manage hostility constructively...