Strategies to assist community nurses who are psychologically abused in interaction with others in the workplace setting

M.Cur.Community health nursing is the synthesis of nursing practice and public health practice. The primary concern of nurses who take on the various roles of the community health nurse is to improve the health of the community. Community health nurses use all of the principles and skills of nursing practice as well as those of public health practice, to aid the community. Nursing is by its very nature a stressful job. In addition, low wages, inadequacy of equipment and materials, too long working hours and excessive number of patients to care for, have a negative effect on working conditions and the physical/psychological health of nurses. Although emotional abuse is a widespread form of violence, it is rarely recognized as such by its victims. Many are convinced that they are at fault and thus do not perceive themselves as abused. The explanation of the term “emotional abuse” includes aspects such as non-physical abuse, indirect abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, psychological aggression, psychological maltreatment and mental or psychological torture. Lack of positive or other constructive feedback from senior staff has been cited as a problem in a number of studies and there is much anecdotal evidence in the nursing press on feedback, which is either negative or absent. The paradigmatic framework of reference of the Theory of Health Promotion in Nursing in the Department of Nursing of the University of Johannesburg was used as a guideline in conducting this research. The researcher followed a functional approach according to the Botes model for nursing research (University of Johannesburg, 2006:8-13). The design used in this research is qualitative, phenomenological, exploratory, descriptive and contextual in nature (Burns & Grove, 2001:223-225). In-depth, semistructured, phenomenological interviews were conducted with participants who met the criteria for inclusion. Some of the nurses were asked to write naïve sketches. Purposive sampling was used. A pilot study was conducted. To ensure trustworthiness the researcher made use of Guba & Lincoln’s (in Holloway & Wheeler, 1996:163) four alternatives. The researcher used Tesch’s approach (Poggenpoel in De Vos, 2003:343) to transcribe the recorded interviews and essays and to analyse the data gathered from the interviews. A literature control was conducted to re-contextualise the results within the literature. The researcher came to the conclusion that even though not much exists in literature with regard to psychological abuse in nursing, this research found it to be a stark reality. Three main categories came to the fore: (1) disempowering working conditions; (2) disrespectful practices; and, (3) nurses’ negative response to psychological abuse. Strategies were developed in order to address the problem of psychological abuse. Conclusions were drawn, and recommendations were made for the field of nursing