Abstract
M.Cur. (Psychiatric Nursing)
Social situations make a person vulnerable to mental illness. These situations include circumstances
such as poverty, an unstable family and inadequate nutrition. A combination of these circumstances
predisposes exposed people to developing unhealthy ways of coping with stress.
'.
Violence can be seen as a way of managing stress, but also as a factor causing stress. An example
of unhealthy ways of stress management in the current South African society is the violence that lends
to unrest which has affected different communities in a short space of time.
There does not seem to be much information in texts about the. effects of violence, and not enough
studies have yet been done to gain enough insight into this field, since it has only recently drawn the
attention of health professionals. As a result, the development of sound interventive measures in this'
regard to support the communities exposed to violence, has been neglected.
The aim of this study is to explore the experience of a community exposed to violence and to compile
guidelines for support action for the exposed community studied.
An exploratory contextual study was undertaken with the purpose of generating meaning regarding
the experience of a 'community characterised by violence. . The phenomenological method of
interviewing was used to gather data. The target population consisted of a township community of
228000.
Ten respondents were interviewed in total, selected by the convenience purposive sampling method
through intermediaries. The interviews were recorded on tape and later transcribed verbatim. Data
was analysed by the method of content analysis.
The results were centred on the respondents' and their families' experiences of violence since March
1990. The results indicated four types of experiences for all people exposed to violence:
psychological, spiritual, physical and behaviourial experiences. The experiences of interactions with
the internal environment (psychological, spiritual and physical experiences), were predominantly
negative, except for only two positive spiritual experiences (improvements in the people's faith and positive experiences in both environments brought about new insights, that is, that even though most
of their internal environment and part of their external environment is bleak and hopeless, the victims
of violence still have the will to survive and live a normal life like other people. This positive attitude
then, supplies the psychiatric nurse with a point of entry to bring about positive change that acts as
a support for the community exposed to violence.