Abstract
M.Cur.
In South Africa there are a number of "risk factors" relating to mental disorders. These include poverty, malnutrition, violence, the breakup of families due to migrant labour, racism, poor preand post-natal services.
Facilities within mental health lag far behind other areas of health care and for the majority (e.g. the rural areas of the Eastern Cape Province) there is no care at all.
This includes a lack of knowledge amongst the families of mentally ill persons about the care of their mentally ill members. There are no community mental health care services. People are only sent to mental hospitals when they are completely out of control. When discharged these patients are sent to their totally unprepared family members who experience difficulties in accepting them back home.
It has been proven that mental illness affects the family - physically, emotionally, mentally and socially.
To explore this, the researcher studied the effects of mental illness on the family. The goal of this study is to:
Explore and describe the experience of families with a mentally ill family member.
Describe guidelines for the advanced psychiatric nurse specialist to assist families in
mobilising their resources to facilitate the promotion, maintenance and restoration of their
mental health as an integral part of health (wholeness).
This study was undertaken within the framework of the Nursing for the Whole Person Theory (Oral Roberts University, Anna Vaughn School of Nursing, 1990: 136 - 142; Rand Afrikaans University, Department of Nursing Science, 1992: 7 - 9), which functions in an integrated biopsychosocial manner (body, mind and spirit), within the family or community. The parameters of nursing and beliefs about man, health, illness and nursing are also described.
A functional reasoning approach is followed based on the model for nursing research developed by Botes (1991). A phenomenological approach to nursing research was utilised. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted and field notes were taken with the permission of the families.
Steps were taken throughout the, research to ensure trustworthiness. Data were analysed
following Giorgi's and Tesch's (in Cresswell, 1994: 155) methods and the services of an
independent coder were obtained. After analysis of data, follow-up interviews were conducted with some family members included in the sample. A literature control was undertaken to validate data and to compare findings with those of other research studies.
The results of this study indicate that families suffer emotional disturbances, financial losses, social discrimination and that they use destructive defence mechanisms. Despite this, the families still display a feeling of hope.