Abstract
M.Cur. (Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing)
Psychiatric nursing is seen as a high-stress profession. The demands of caring for others, especially those who suffer from acute and chronic mental health impairment, can be extremely stressful (Lin, Probst & Hsu, 2010:2343). Psychiatric nurses run a high risk for being exposed to aggression in the work environment. The aggression that they experience is not only from hostile and aggressive mental health care users, but also from fellow colleagues. Aggression in the work environment has an overt negative psychological effect on the nurse (Yildirim, 2009:509; Bimenyimana, Poggenpoel, Myburgh & Van Niekerk, 2009:5).
The aim of the research study was to explore and describe the lived experience of psychiatric nurses of aggression amongst colleagues in the work environment. A second aim was to formulate guidelines on assisting psychiatric nurses and their colleagues in order to facilitate their own mental health.
The research design of the study is qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual in nature (Maphorisa, Poggenpoel & Myburgh, 2002:24). This qualitative approach created an opportunity to discover the phenomena of the lived experiences of psychiatric nurses of aggression amongst colleagues. The research study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, data was collected by means of conducting in-depth phenomenological interviews, naïve sketches, observations and field notes until data saturation was achieved.
In the second phase, guidelines, recommendations, challenges and a summary were formulated to address the lived experience of the psychiatric nurses of aggression amongst colleagues in the work environment. During data collection, the following question was asked in the in-depth phenomenological interviews and naive sketches, “What is your experience of aggression amongst colleagues in the work environment?” Tesch’s (Creswell, 2004:256) open coding method and an independent coder were used during data analysis.