Working effectively with consumers: Perspectives from students, teachers, nurses, and consumers

Preparing enrolled nurses (ENs) to effectively work with mental health consumers is crucial to meeting Australia's healthcare demands. This qualitative study aimed to explore various stakeholders' perceptions regarding the mental health knowledge, skills, and attributes (KSAs) required by ENs to engage with individuals experiencing mental health issues, thus guiding future training priorities. The sample comprised 44 participants including 18 students, 3 graduate ENs, 5 experienced ENs, 5 registered nurses (RNs), 4 nurse unit managers (NUMs), 5 teachers, and 5 consumers of mental health services. Focus groups were used to collect data from the students, whilst individual interviews were conducted with all other participants. A thematic analysis revealed communication was the most vital skill for effectively working with mental health consumers. Skills such as critical thinking and clinical reasoning were also deemed crucial, given the volatile nature of the mental health inpatient environment, necessitating effective responses to acute escalations to prevent adverse outcomes for both staff and consumers. Essential knowledge components included understanding mental health disorders, symptoms, and treatments, particularly medications used for mental health issues. Participants also emphasised the importance of attributes like confidence and empathy in supporting and caring for consumers, who often experienced trauma and vulnerability. These findings provide valuable insights into the content that should be incorporated into the diploma of nursing (DN) training to produce competent graduate ENs.

The Development and Implementation of a Model to Facilitate Self-Awareness of Professionalism for Enrolled Nurses

Within the South African context, the nursing profession comprises different nursing cadres. The enrolled nurse is considered a sub-category of nursing and therefore does not carry the title of 'professional' as in a professional nurse. The purpose of the study was to develop, describe, implement, and evaluate a model for the facilitation of self-awareness for the professionalism of enrolled nurses at a specific nursing agency in Gauteng. A theory generating, qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual design was used and was conducted following Chinn and Kramer's four stages of model development. The model can benefit nursing education because it relates to an essential aspect of growth and maturity in one's career. Ultimately, the facilitation of self-awareness for professionalism can advance one's career, or the lack of self-awareness may impede one's career. Developing, describing, implementing and evaluating this model to facilitate self-awareness for the professionalism of enrolled nurses at a specific nursing agency in Gauteng provides an original contribution to the theory in nursing professionalism and ethos. This model can be utilised as a tool to facilitate self-awareness for the professionalism of enrolled nurses at a nursing agency.

Factors affecting the provision of health service delivery in schools in Engela district, Ohangwena region, Namibia

Background

While health services have been offered at various schools in Namibia since independence in 1990, coverage has been limited and there has been a notable decline in recent years. This reduction of services is of great concern, with questions being raised regarding what factors are affecting the provision of these services.

Aim

To explore the factors affecting the provision of health services to schools in Engela district, Ohangwena region, Namibia.

Settings

Semistructured interviews were conducted at a public health care facility situated in the northern part of Namibia.

Methods

A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was utilised. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 15 nurses from a health centre, of whom five were enrolled nurses and 10 were registered nurses. The data were then analysed thematically.

Results

The study revealed three themes: participants’ understanding of school health services; factors affecting the delivery of school health services; and corrective measures for improving the delivery of school health services.

Conclusion

The notable decline in health service provision to various schools within the district suggests that there might be factors affecting the provision of school health services, posing a serious challenge to the active implementation of the School Health Programme.

Contribution

These findings could be used to make adjustments to the provision of school health services and will also serve as an information baseline to elicit suggestions for future research related to school health services.

The relationship between resilience and empowering leader behaviour of nurse managers in the mining healthcare sector

BACKGROUND

 The South African mining healthcare sector faces injuries, illnesses including HIV and AIDS and high staff turnover rates. In this sector, nurse managers should create an optimal environment for providing nursing care by motivating, influencing and empowering nurses.

OBJECTIVES

 This study aimed to investigate the relationship between nurse managers' resilience and empowering leader behaviour in this sector.

METHOD

 The study employed a quantitative, descriptive and correlational design. The research population comprised 31 nurse managers, 101 professional nurses, 79 enrolled nurses and 79 enrolled nursing auxiliaries who participated in the study. Two questionnaires were used as data collection methods, namely Wagnild and Young's Resilience Scale Questionnaire to investigate the resilience of nurse managers and the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire to measure empowering leader behaviour of the nurses supervised by a particular nurse manager.

RESULTS

 Out of 31 nurse managers, 8 had a low level, 19 had a moderate level and 4 had a high level of resilience. According to Hoteling's t-test the nurse managers in the low resilience group displayed lower empowering leader behaviour as perceived by their team members than those in the high resilience group in terms of the five factors included in the Empowerment Leadership Questionnaire.

CONCLUSION

 Respondents with high resilience scores tended to have higher leader empowering behaviour.Recommendations include the strengthening of nurse managers' resilience through workshops and reflection practices, debriefing and performance feedback sessions.