Abstract
M.Cur. (Psychiatric Nursing)
The closure of Life Esidimeni Care Centres in Gauteng Province, South Africa, not only caused the deaths of many patients who suffered from mental illness, but also caused the psychiatric nurses who worked at the centres to be unsettled about their future in the workplace. Most had to relocate to different public hospitals that were far from their original family setup, social networks, and they were consequently separated from their families. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe psychiatric nurses’ lived experiences after the closure of Life Esidimeni Care Centres in Gauteng and formulate recommendations to facilitate the mental health of the psychiatric nurses. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual design was utilised in this study to answer the research question. The research was conducted in two phases. In Phase 1 the focus was on the exploration and description of the psychiatric nurses’ lived experiences. In Phase 2, guidelines to facilitate the mental health of the psychiatric nurses were formulated. A purposive sampling method was employed to select psychiatric nurses to participate in the study. Data were collected using face-to-face, individual, in-depth, phenomenological interviews. Tesch’s method of open coding was used to analyse the transcribed interviews and three themes emerged from the data analysis: 1. Psychiatric nurses experienced the closure of the care centre as a severe shock, leaving them feeling dismayed, and their lives disrupted in all spheres. 2. Psychiatric nurses had traumatic experiences related to the tragic disintegration of patients’ lives, and those of their families and work-life. 3. Psychiatric nurses showed resilience and were moving forward in rebuilding their lives. Credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability strategies were implemented to ensure trustworthiness in the study. Moreover, the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice were adhered to throughout the study to safeguard the rights of the psychiatric nurses. Specific recommendations to facilitate the mental health of the psychiatric nurses who worked at Life Esidimeni at the time of the closure are presented.