Abstract
M.Cur.
This qualitative study explored and described the lived experience of newly qualified professional nurses working at a public psychiatric hospital in Johannesburg. Guidelines will be developed from these lived experiences to assist future professional nurse recruits in promoting their mental health thus enabling them to make healthy life choices in enriching their lives towards reaching their full potential. The mental health definition in this study was taken from Kreigh and Perko (1983: 34); encompassing three broad components namely a relationship with self, others and the environment.
A qualitative explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used. ‘In-depth’ phenomenological interviews were done with seven participants male and female aged between twenty – seven and thirty – seven years of age at the identified public psychiatric hospital. The objective was to gain an understanding of the lived experienced by participants while working at the public psychiatric hospital and their mental health.
The findings in this study indicate that working at this public psychiatric hospital is an evolving process with both mental health infringing and mental health facilitating processes. The process commenced with newly qualified professional nurses personal preference to work in the field of psychiatry. Disillusionment followed soon after starting to work in the setting as a consequence of job dissatisfaction manifested in the relationship with others, the environment and the self. The participants consider resignations a way of dealing with the negative consequences with one exception [‘I want to get out …’].