Magdalena P. Koen

There is currently a growing understanding of child mental health. However, with little attention and investment from decision-makers, the prevalence of child mental health challenges shows no signs of diminishing. Psychiatric nursing is a process in which the major knowledge and skills dealing with the interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics of human beings are practised. These nurses have to cope with this demand in a scant clinical child psychiatric environment. An exploratory, descriptive, and contextual research design was used to postulate the coping mechanism of these nurses in a clinical child psychiatric environment. This study comprised psychiatric nurses, and data were collected through focused group interviews. The findings emphasised the importance of clinical support to enhance quality nursing care and adjustment related to the demands on psychiatric nurses to participate fully in the service. Conclusion: Child and mental health services ought to enable nurses to better deal with the service demands and quality of psychiatric health care. An increased understanding of child mental health challenges is needed so that nurses’ roles and functions in child psychiatric practice can be defined. Effective management and support ought to enable psychiatric nurses and health care teams to make decisions that support international development targets.

Introduction: Psychiatric nurses have a specialized body of knowledge and skills in providing care to persons with mental health challenges. The literature provides scanty evidence on child psychiatric nursing practices. This paper explored the successes of psychiatric nurses in caring for children with mental health problems using appreciative inquiry (AI). Design: A qualitative exploratory and descriptive design was used to allow for new ideas that can fundamentally reshape the practice of child psychiatric nursing. Purposive sampling was used to select psychiatric nurses caring for children with mental health problems. Focus groups were used to generate data. Findings: The results indicate both positive and negative prospects for psychiatric nursing practice. The positive possibilities included commitment, passion and dedication of staff to the children. The negative aspects that need urgent attention include lack of specific, integrated child mental health within the mental health care services, shortage of resources and not-fit-for purpose infrastructure. Conclusion: Appreciative inquiry verified the commitment of psychiatric nurses in caring for children with mental health problems and the potential for dedicated child psychiatric institutions in realizing the needs of such children. The needs of children with mental health problems must be addressed through positive care in the health system.

Nurse managers are often exposed to workplace stressors, thus it becomes necessary to enhance their resilience which will enable them to withstand workplace adversity. The purpose of the current study was to develop strategies that can enhance the resilience of nurse managers. A purposive sample of 49 nurse managers working in the general wards of 11 public hospitals in Botswana was undertaken. The study was done in two phases. Phase 1 of the study entailed the empirical phase that followed a concurrent mixed methods research (MMR) design, which included both quantitative and qualitative components in a single study at the same time. In Phase 2, the findings from the empirical phase, as well as the theoretical data, were utilised to develop a conceptual framework and strategies to enhance the resilience of nurse managers. The Kumpfer resilience model was used to guide the development of the conceptual framework, and a logic model further assisted with the development of strategies. The study identified the following main strategies that can enhance the resilience of nurse managers, namely: leadership development; building support systems; life skills development; and resource availability. The strategies should be utilised by nurse managers and senior management to enhance the resilience of nurse managers in order to facilitate the delivery of quality nursing services and patient care.

There are currently no guidelines available for enhancement of resilience in professional nurses. This study aims to provide broad guidelines with specific strategies that may enhance resilience and psycho-social well-being in professional nurses. These guidelines are based findings from previous qualitative research on resilience in professional nurses in the public and private sector in South Africa. We used Kumpfer's (1999) theoretical model of resilience to frame the guidelines. Resilience among professional nurses appears to vary in manifestation across settings of practice.