Abstract
M.Cur. (Psychiatric Nursing)
Health professionals are trained so that the government's objective of making
health care accessible to all its citizens is realised. Psychiatric nurses in
particular, receive specialised nurse training to assist them to promote mental
health in people afflicted with mental illness. The dynamics of the psychiatric
nursing practice context have undeniably been affected by the democratic,
political and legislative changes in the country. The diverse cultural challenges
that arose as a result of political changes challenge the interaction of psychiatric
nurses and patients in the practice context.
Psychiatric nursing is taught as a comprehensive education programme, a
requirement for a basic nursing diploma or degree, as a post-basic nursing
diploma and at post-graduate level. Psychiatric institutions are staffed with
nursing personnel that are psychiatrically trained at different levels of the
psychiatric nursing programmes. Psychiatric institutions also serve as a clinical
practice base for the-training of psychiatric nurses. The researcher, while interacting with psychiatric nurses as a psychiatric nurse
lecturer, observed that psychiatric nurses poorly utilise the psychiatric knowledge
and skills received during psychiatric nurse training in practice to benefit the
psychiatric patients they interact with daily.
A qualitative descriptive, explorative and contextual research study was
undertaken to explore and describe how psychiatric nurses experience their
interaction with psychiatric nurses on a day-to-day basis. Psychiatric patients
also described how they experienced their interaction with psychiatric nurses on
a day-to-day basis.