Abstract
M.Cur.
South Africa is called the Rainbow Nation with a variety of cultures and ethnic groups.
The population currently is estimated at over 40 million, of whom 73% are women and
children (Government Gazette, 1997:11). According to the Government Gazette
( 1997: 11) major disparities and inequalities exist between the different population
groups, with reference to their socio-economic position. This inevitably led to major
problems such as poverty and violence.
One of these problems of violence seems to be domestic violence as stated by the South
African Police Service (1998 : 10). They confirmed that the number of incidents of
domestic violence in which especially women, children and the elderly are the victims,
appear to be continually on the increase in South Africa. The South African Police
Service (1998: 1) states that domestic violence is a serious crime against society, which
can lead to repeated victimisation and repeated offending and sometimes eventually
spirals into fatality.
Domestic violence became a topic of interest to the researcher because of the number
of women that came under her attention while working in the community services.
Evaluation of the service delivery and understanding of domestic violence by community
members and health care workers showed poor results with some still clinging to myths
coming from cultural beliefs. According to Hague and Wilson (2000 : 157) the most
common explanation for domestic violence continues to be a lack of compliance by the
wife, coupled with historically long-lived ideas about the breadwinner's rightful
authority.
The goal of this study was to explore and describe the lived experience of abused women
subjected to domestic violence and to describe guidelines for psychiatric nurse
practitioners to support abused women who are subjected to domestic violence, in
facilitating their mental health and optimising their ability to terminate the abusive
situation.
In conducting this research the framework of the Theory for Health Promotion in
Nursing (Rand Afrikaans University, 2000) were used, which dealt with the internal
and external world experience of the abused women.
A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used
specific to domestic violence for this study. In-depth, semi-structured phenomenological
interviews were conducted with abused women subjected to domestic violence who met
the sample criteria.
To ensure trustworthiness, the researcher made use ofGuba's (DeVos, 1998: 348-350)
model of trustworthiness. Data analysis was done according to Tesch's (DeVos, 1998
: 343 -352) method.
The results of this study showed that abused women who are subjected to domestic
violence suffer a great deal of trauma and degrading due to physical or mental abuse of
a loved one. Their trauma was evident by the experience of negative psychological
dynamics that contributed to the shattering of the self. The degrading of the person
eventually leads to the shattering of other relations and at the end to the realisation that
they are victims.