Abstract
M.Cur. (Psychiatric Nursing)
The objectives of this study were to describe group nursing therapy as a resource
utilized by the psychiatric nurse as a way of facilitating the adolescent's
mobilization of resources to cope with the violence in their everyday life and to
describe guidelines for group nursing therapy to facilitate the promotion,
maintenance and restoration of these adolescent's mental health. The situation of
violence makes the adolescent susceptible to mental health problems. The
adolescent perceive various degrees of violence in their homes, the community and
at school. A combination of these violence related situations predisposes the
adolescents to developing unhealthy ways of coping with the effects of violence.
The number of adolescents referred to psychiatric community services has increased
at an alarming rate. The main reasons for their referral was their poor
scholastic performance; they were generally labelled as "a lost generation" and
also as being mentally ill.
The research was based on Nursing for the Whole Person Theory and the functional
approach to nursing research was assumed. This implies that the goal of the
research was aimed at improving the quality of patient care. The research design
was descriptive and qualitative in nature, which was also contextual. The
descriptive single case study method was utilized. Reliability was ensured by using
as many steps as possible to operationalize the case study - and the research was
conducted as if someone were always looking over the researcher's shoulder.
Validity control measures were applied to counteract criticism by ensuring that a
sufficient operational set of measures was developed and objective judgements
were used to collect data by way of coding transcribed audiotaped material from
all the sessions of the group nursing therapy...