Abstract
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...